


Your #1 Fan

by zellloveshotdogs



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Disfigurement, Drugged Sex, Enemies to Friends, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Gen, Graphic Description, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kidnapping, Male-Female Friendship, Needles, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Touching, Obsession, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Restraints, Sexual Assault, Stalking, Vaginal Sex, Witness trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2019-10-17 07:10:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17555741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zellloveshotdogs/pseuds/zellloveshotdogs
Summary: Bound for a mission in Timber, Quistis is kidnapped by an obsessed former Trepie. The clues to her whereabouts are few, and time is running out.There's not much to go on, and the leads aren't panning out, but Zell, is determined to find his best friend and bring her home alive, if not necessarily in one piece.A story of obsession, devastation, acceptance, and love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a really ugly story so please read the tags.This is explicitly an adult work and I meant it when I tagged it that way. This is not for the faint of heart so read at your own risk. Consider yourselves warned. 
> 
> I do not endorse or condone the kind of violence described in this fic. 
> 
> If there are any tags I forgot, let me know in the comments. 
> 
> And, uh, also: Allow me to introduce you to my rarepair ship. I am all alone in this sinking canoe.

  
“Quistis failed to check in with her contact in Timber,” Xu announces from the door of Squall's office. “She was due thirteen hours ago.”

Squall sets down his pen and pushes away the pile of contracts in need of his signature. Xu has her hands on her hips and a very clear demand in her eyes.

“Did you check if there was a train delay?”

“I did,” Xu says. “Train arrived at 3:03 am. On time, no delays. I called the hotel, too. She never checked in.”

Squall processes this information. Quistis Trepe is never late for anything, weather and mechanical delays aside. In her years as a SeeD, she has never failed to show up. She's usually thirty minutes early and ready to go.

“What are you going to do about it?” Xu asks.

Squall knows Quistis. If something went wrong, it's a certainty that she's laying low until she can contact Garden. Quistis knows protocol. She eats, sleeps, and breathes it. Probably talks about it in her sleep, just like Squall does when he's extremely tired.

“Send Zell and a small team to Timber,” Squall says. “And call the train station. See if we can take a look at the security tapes on both platforms.”

Xu is satisfied with his response. She nods once and vanishes from his doorway.

Squall sits back in his chair and does his best to ignore the flutter in his stomach.

Quistis Trepe is a decorated SeeD. She's tough. Smart. Strong. She has over two-hundred missions under her belt, the majority successful. Her kill record boggles his mind. Quistis and him are not close on a personal level, but on a professional one, they know each other inside and out.

She can take care of herself.

Unless -

Squall refuses to think it.

There's no way Quistis somehow got herself killed on a simple recon mission.

There's just no way.

 

 

  
Zell paces a circuit around the SeeD car, his mind tripping over the limited details about this emergency mission. Quistis is missing. That's all they know.

He cracks his knuckles and checks his phone and ignores the pair of squabbling level six newbies they've sent with them.

No missed calls. No messages. Nothing.

Zell is worried. This is not like Quistis. She's a professional. She always checks in when she's supposed to, never shirks duty to go shopping, and never gets distracted by other tasks. When she's on the job she _is_ the job and she is the standard for how to do it.

There are a lot of things that can happen to a beautiful woman at that hour of the night. None of them good, but Quistis is capable of getting herself out of a tough spot. She doesn't put up with men who feel entitled to her body because she's attractive.

Not so long ago, there was visiting Galbadian SeeD who grabbed her ass during a strategy meeting. She warned him once. 

Later, he slid his hand up her thigh under the table.  She didn't give him a second warning. She instead hit him so hard, she knocked him out cold. Broke his nose in two places.

Zell had been so proud of his best friend for refusing to back down. He couldn't have done better himself and he still remembers the spray of blood spewing from the SeeD's nose with fondness.  

Timber is still a dangerous place.  It's caught in limbo between occupation and liberation and the citizens struggle to make ends meet.  People are desperate.  Sometimes desperate enough to hold up unsuspecting souls in the middle of the night for their valuables. 

Sexual assault is also on the rise, with only a citizen run police force to keep people safe. Galbadia gave Timber its independence, but took with it the funding for civil services and public safety.  Timber has become a lawless place.  A haven for criminals and rapists and the drifters and the downtrodden.

No.

Quistis wouldn't take shit off some leering drunk stumbling home from the bar. Not one, and not a pack of them.

It has to be something else.

 

 

They arrive in Timber just after lunch time. Quistis has been missing for twenty-five hours. 

A lot could happen in a day. 

With a rumbling stomach, Zell checks into the hotel and sends one of the level six SeeDs off to find something to eat. He needs a break from the bickering. Can't tell if they like each other and want to get it on in the bathroom while he's busy, or if they're going to kill each other the second he turns his back on them.

Once the six is gone, Zell sits down on a bed and calls Xu.

“Any news?” he asks.

“She boarded the train in Balamb,” Xu says, “And got off in Timber, as far as I can tell.”

“As far as you can tell?”

“The lighting sucks,” Xu says. “Someone else got off with her, but it's hard to tell which way they went. Working on getting a passenger list now.”

“What about surveillance on the train?” Zell asks. “Maybe there was somebody hanging around or being weird.”

“I knew you were good for something,” Xu says. “Don't let Leonhart tell you any different. But I'm already working on it.”

She's just being Xu, but the comment burns. Zell has struggled for a long time with feeling his leadership skills are lacking. In combat, he's a tank. He can take a lot of pain and deal out even more without breaking a sweat. He doesn't get to be in charge of missions very often, and he worries it's because Squall doesn't trust him not to screw it up.

Squall's probably right. Zell knows he speaks before he thinks and he makes impulsive decisions that get everyone in trouble, but he's gotten better about it. Experience and maturity have mellowed him. He's not a kid who lets himself be ruled by his emotions anymore.

“Any ideas where I should start?” Zell asks. “I don't have a lot to go on here.”

“I'm aware,” Xu says. “Have your minions start asking around, and find out if there are any security cameras outside the train station.”

“M'kay,” he says. “Keep me posted.”

“You do the same,” she says. “And Zell? If she doesn't come back alive and you could have prevented it, I will hold you _personally_ responsible. Understood?”

“Crystal,” Zell says. “If she's alive, I'll find her, Xu.”

“And if she's not?”

“Then I'll hunt down the bastard who did it and cave his face in.”

 

 

Quistis is cold and her body feels like lead. Her eyes don't want to open. They're glued shut with sleep gum and what little light there is in the room stings.

It's hard to move and there is something wrapped tight around her wrists and ankles. She's not sure what happened to her clothes but she would sell her soul for a blanket.

A shadow blocks the light, and Quistis opens her eyes a crack. A man stands beside her, naked and smiling. His face is a familiar one, but she can't place him. Anyway, it's not his face that has her attention.

He's aroused, and all she can see is the long, thick cock with the bead of precum glistening at the tip.

Her lips part and they're so chapped, they crack like her voice when she utters a warning. Her words are thick and slurred and she understands that she's been drugged.

He touches her breast, cups the bottom of it in his palm and strokes the nipple with his thumb. Quistis gasps and her insides tighten, her groggy mind shouting for murder and blood.

“Stop,” she murmurs. “I don't know you.”

It's a stupid thing to say. It doesn't matter if she knows him or not. She's a hostage. Dopey, thick mind or not, she can tell that much.

His hand slides up her thigh, his fingers curl inward around the tender flesh, nails digging in for a second before he starts to draw circles on her skin with a fingertip. His eyes are feverish with want.

“No,” she croaks. “ _No_.”

His fingers move higher. They stroke her labia and part them, plunge inside her body, and she screams behind her closed lips, steeling herself for what comes next. She can tell by the soreness of her opening that he's already done as he pleased at least once. She's less grateful for unconsciousness than she should be. 

“I love you so much,” he says in a reverent, sickeningly sincere tone. “Tell me you love me, too.”

His fingers are moving faster, harder. Pain cuts through the dullness of the drug, and Quistis' hips jerk away.

There is nowhere to go. She's bound to the bed, a prisoner, completely at his mercy. His fingers press in deeper.

“No,” she says again.

His hand locks around her throat and he climbs over her, his face hovering above hers. Quistis chokes. She can't breathe.

“Say it.”

He means to kill her. He'll squeeze the life out of her if he doesn't get his way. She's with it enough to know that look in his eyes.

Quistis wants to live. She doesn't know how she'll live with this humiliation, but she is not ready to die. Not like this.

Not like this.

She forces her mouth to make the shape of the words. Forces herself to give him what he wants.

He lets go and Quistis draws in as much air as she can, coughs on it, and pretends this is just another training session where Xu is handing her her own ass because she let her guard down.

“Louder.”

“I love you,” she wheezes.

His face softens and he kisses her lips tenderly. Quistis' skin crawls, but she kisses back, pretending she wants this. It's the only way she'll survive. It's protocol, a directive taught to every SeeD. Article 27, section B. If escape is not possible, comply with your captor.

This was especially true for operatives who found themselves facing sexual assault. Don't fight it if there's no way out. Open your legs and let them have it. Live to see another day. It's no different than being wounded on the battlefield, you take your licks, you go home, you heal, you move on.

Quistis knows this is a lie. It _is_ different. A bullet in the side never stole her dignity.

He settles between her thighs and she feels him press against her. She only has a second to prepare herself before he spits on her mound and drives himself into her body, all of him, with one hard stroke. She feels herself tear, smells blood and musk in the air.

If she were junctioned, she would summon Eden to destroy him, obliterate him, swallow his remains whole. She's not, and she's forced to feel him moving inside her, satisfying whatever sickness that has caused him to want her this way.

He's not being gentle, there's not enough lubrication, he's tearing her apart. She's a vessel for his rage and his lust, his twisted wants and urges. He takes it out on her, punishing her with every thrust.

She goes still and limp beneath him. There's no way to fight it. The drugs coursing through her veins prevent that. The restraints around her wrists and ankles keep her from clawing his eyes out or kneeing him in the groin. She bites back a scream at the injustice of being left without a means to defend herself, at being left with no alternative but to _comply_.

There's no pleasure in this for her, but his deep, vigorous penetration wrenches unintentional cries from her throat. Sounds he mistakes for desire, and he fucks her harder, faster, making the mattress springs squeak frantically beneath them. It feels like he's scorching her from the inside out.

She has no sense of time, but it takes forever for him to finish. He spills himself deep inside her, warm jets of his semen filling her up and she thinks of disease, blood-borne pathogens, Dr. Kadowaki's lectures on using protection.

He doesn't roll away immediately. He lays his head upon her breast, still inside her, the pulse of his satisfaction beating within her, and he sighs like a contented lover.

“I can't believe you're mine,” he murmurs. Fingers drag through strands of her hair. “I've wanted you for so long... What luck, huh? Meeting on the train like that, after all this time? It's like it was meant to be.”

Quistis is fading, the drug heavy in her veins, but she remembers now.

He was on the train, bound for Timber, too. Business, he said. To look at some real estate for a Galbadian developer.

Nicely dressed, clean-cut, non-threatening, mildly attractive. Dark hair, dark eyes, a strong whiff of Trabia in his features.

He talked at her from his own table in the dining car while Quistis sipped her tea and perused her mission briefing. Quistis had politely nodded a few times, but gave him no signals that she was interested in exchanging more than a few pleasantries. She had a mission to focus on.

Then he'd called her Instructor. She hadn't been called that in a while.

Curiosity got the better of her. She did not ask if he'd been a student of hers. She asked if they'd met before.

He'd laughed and said back when he was a cadet, he'd been her number one fan.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. I didn't notice it cut off the second part of the chapter until this morning. Thought about holding off for a day or two then said nah. Pretty sure everyone who read it hated it except those two nice people who left kudos, so I'm posting because I finished it and leaving it on my laptop seems like a waste. 
> 
> Same warning as before. Read the tags. Ugly stuff.

 

The passenger list is three names long.

The first is Quistis' traveling pseudonym, Raeann Long. The second is Wittaker Davos.

The third is Seifer Almasy.

There's a beat of pure, white-hot rage in Zell's heart at the thought of Quistis in Seifer's hands. They all know what he did to Squall in D-district. Quistis might be Seifer's equal with a weapon in hand, but if it came to physical confrontation, she was no match for a man his size.

“Almasy?” Zell growls into the phone. “Do we have a location?”

“No,” Xu says. “To be frank our intel has him in Dollet on a more or less permanent basis.”

“Obviously the intel is wrong.”

“So it is,” Xu says. “Do you recognize the second name? Davos?”

“No,” Zell says. “Should I?”

“He's was a SeeD candidate. Dropped out,” Xu says. “Failed the SeeD exam six times.”

“You think he and Seifer are in it together?”

“I doubt it,” Xu says. “You know Almasy doesn't work well with others outside his little posse.”

“Yeah,” Zell says. “I gotcha. I'll look into this dude, but my money's on Almasy.”

“Mine too,” Xu says, “though I can't imagine why Almasy would target her after all this time.”

“Guy's a nutcase,” Zell says. “Why does he do anything he does?”

“I have a couple of SeeDs on another contract in the area,” Xu says. “It's a research mission, so I can recall them for a day and send them to you for back-up.”

“How big are they?”

“Finnegan's bigger than Seifer and can bench press a car,” Xu says. “Nina is tiny, but you won't see her until she's already fucked you up.”

Zell smiles at Xu's assessment. He wonders how she would describe him. He can't help but ask.

“Stupid, but takes hits like a brick wall.”

“You're so nice to me, Xu,” he says, only half hurt. Sometimes he is stupid. Sometimes pretending to be stupid is an advantage. “Really I'm flattered.”

“You asked.” Xu titters in his ear and sighs. “It should go without saying, approach Almasy with caution.”

“I had to live with the idiot for years,” Zell says. “I know what to expect.”

“Right,” Xu says. “I suppose you do.”

On the other side of the room, the level sixes are at it again. He wishes it wouldn't be unprofessional to tell them to go fuck each other and get it out of the way, but they're probably both virgins and wouldn't know what to do without a map and a gallon of lube. He meanly considers calling up some gay porn on his laptop so that maybe they'll get the hint.

“Hey, you got photos of this other guy?” Zell asks Xu. “Just so I know who I'm looking for?”

“I don't have anything recent,” Xu says, “but I'll send over what we have in our files.”

“Cool,” Zell says. He pauses and turns his back on the sexual tension radiating from the other side of the room. “Hey, Xu? I'm gonna find her, okay? I'll bring her home.”

“Stop talking about it and do it,” Xu says. Her words are not kind, but her tone is. She's as worried as Zell. She considers Quistis her sister. “The longer we go without finding her, the less likely we will.”

Zell knows this. He's worked missing persons cases before. Time is of the essence.

 

 

 

Quistis is in and out of consciousness for a while. Every time she opens her eyes, he's above her, his weight bearing her down into the mattress, his skin slick with perspiration. Grunting like a pig in her ear.

She's raw from repeated penetration and his cum stings her friction burned flesh. She checks in and out, welcoming the darkness when it comes, and wishing for it to come back when she's awake.

When will it end? When will he grow tired of this?

Is someone looking for her?

She doesn't know how long it's been since she left Garden. A few hours? Days? Weeks? How long?

She's only half awake when he declares that she needs a bath. He tapes her wrists behind her back, tapes her ankles together and carries her to the tub. If she were less drugged, she could fight him off. Elbows and knees are effective weapons in a pinch, but everything is hazy and her limbs are weak and uncoordinated.

The water is warm and soapy. It burns her inflamed sex like fire and she whimpers at the shock of pain it sends through her nerve endings.

He washes her skin with a soft cloth. Shampoos her hair. His hands are tender and loving. So different from the way he handles her when he fucks her. She wishes she could cry, but the drugs keep her too numb to feel anything but the extreme.

“You're so fucking beautiful,” he says. His fingertip circles a nipple. It stiffens under his touch. “I feel so selfish keeping you all to myself.”

The irony of that statement feeds the brewing hysteria in her belly.

“All those other Trepies claimed to love you. Remember? We worshiped the ground you walked on,” he says, “but none of them loved you as much as I do.”

Quistis doesn't know what love is. No one's ever truly loved her in the romantic sense, but this is not how it's supposed to work.

“And now, you're all mine,” he says. He strokes her wet hair and kisses her forehead. “I'm so blessed to have you.”

He nuzzles the side of her face and his hand dips beneath the surface of the water. His fingers massage her clit. She feels nothing.

“Tell me you love me,” he murmurs.

Underneath the weight of forced intoxication, there is a beat of panic. She answers him in the affirmative. She loves him. These words have no meaning. She does not mean them. He smiles beauteously and his eyes shimmer with tears.

He drags her from the tub and puts her on her knees, water spilling from her hair and skin, all over the bathroom floor.

“Show me how much you love me,” he says. The tip of his cock presses against her lips. “Prove it.”

Quistis opens her mouth. Lets him in.

He holds a fistful of her hair and starts to thrust himself past her lips, all the way to the back of her throat. She gags on it and bites down, her teeth sinking into him, thinking she'd rather have his blood in her mouth than his cum.

His scream echoes off the tiles and bounces around the small space. A hand crashes against the side of her face and she slides to the floor. His face is a blurry red moon against clean, white ceramic.

“Fucking bitch!” he growls and pins her face down on the cold floor.

All the fight goes out of her when he presses a fingertip into her ass. She knows this is going to hurt. The more she resists, the worse it's going to feel.

She's still not prepared for just how incredibly painful it really is, like being hit with a blunt object combined with being stabbed with a hot poker, all while getting her internal organs forcibly rearranged. He tears into her, no regard for her comfort, and she shrieks at the searing pain cuts that through the drugs.

“Fucking bitch,” he chants over and over while she screams silently into the tile. “You fucking bitch.”

She is certain she will not make it out of this alive.

 

 

  
It takes Zell two days to track Almasy down. He's not staying inside city limits and the citizens are not forthcoming with information about the former mass murderer in their midst. They don't want to cause trouble, or bring trouble upon themselves by ratting him out. Zell is annoyed, but he doesn't blame them. Crossing Almasy is like poking a blue dragon with a stick.

It costs him a meal and several drinks to get a reporter from the Timber Gazette to give him a location, but it's a good lead that actually pans out after several false starts.

He rents a car and he drives outside the city to a rundown house that borders on a shack. The tin siding is hanging off and the roof is dented and rusted. On the lawn are three ancient cars on cinder blocks.

The two SeeDs Xu sent are with him, while the level sixes try to track down Wittaker Davos, who is supposedly out of town, according to his landlord. Attempts to reach him by phone have yielded nothing, and his name appears on the passenger list on an outbound train about six hours after his arrival, though it's not clear if he actually boarded or not.

A malfunction in the system, they told him. Nobody's ticked was logged as accepted. What a fucking surprise.

Seifer's in the back yard when they approach the house. He's not wearing a shirt. Zell takes note of the old scars, pockmarks from shotgun blasts and magic, diagonal slices from blades, a nasty trench on his side that looks like he was flayed open.

There are fresh scratches on his forearm and on his back. They look like human claw marks and Zell goes on high alert.

“What the fuck do you want?” Seifer says.

Zell doesn't take the bait. Quistis's life is at stake, and he doesn't have time to dick around being petty.

“Quistis is missing,” Zell says. “Need to know if you've seen her.”

“I saw her,” Seifer says. “On the train the other night.”

Zell is surprised Seifer admits it. He's further surprised by the slight worry he sees behind the hostile expression.

“You talk to her?”

“The fuck would I have to say to her?” Seifer asks. “Haven't heard from any of you assholes from Garden in over a year. You'd think someone would have at least sent me a birthday card.”

“Did she see you?”

“No,” Seifer says. “She was talking to this guy in the diner car. It would have been rude to interrupt.”

“Since when do you care about being rude?”

“These days I keep my mouth shut and my head down,” Seifer says. “Otherwise it invites opinions.”

“Opinions? What the hell does that mean?”

“Everybody's got some kind of opinion about why I did what I did,” Seifer says. “I got sick of hearing opinions from people who weren't there and who know fuck all about it.”

Zell supposes he can understand. Not why Seifer did what he did, or what it's like to be him, but he's had his share of unwanted opinions, too.

“You see her get off the train?”

“No,” he says.

Seifer pauses, turns around and picks up a ragged towel. He wipes his brow and turns to face Zell again.

“If you haven't heard from her, she's probably dead,” Seifer says.

Zell stiffens. He wants to rage at Seifer for saying it. Wants to smash his face in, but Seifer is more than likely right.

“Where'd you get those scratches?” Zell asks.

The corner of Seifer's mouth turns downward. He shoots a look at the house.

“Fuckin' squirrels,” Seifer says. “Living in the insulation. Tried to get 'em out without torching the place, but little fuckers have some sharp nails.”

Zell's not sure if he believes that or not. He looks at the house.

“Mind if I take a look around?” Zell asks.

“Enter at your own fucking risk,” Seifer says. “Though, any tips on desquirrelification would be much appreciated.”

Zell's Ma used to chase them out the back door with a broom. There had been a hole in the roof, which lead them into the wall, to a small opening around the pipe under the downstairs bathroom sink. Zell fixed both and the squirrels stopped inviting themselves in for peanut butter and bread.

“Patch up the holes,” Zell says.

“Easier said than done,” Seifer mutters.

Zell climbs the steps and walks inside the one room house. It's in shambles. There are multiple holes in the walls. The appliances are older than both of them combined. The only thing new is the bed. A twin on a simple metal frame with no headboard. He looks under it, but there's only a suitcase.

If he has her, which Zell now highly doubts, she's not here.

He returns to the yard.

“Find what you're looking for?” Seifer asks.

“What do you think?”

“I may be many things, most of them not good, but I'd never pull some shit like that,” Seifer says. “At least, not now that my brain isn't being hijacked by sorcery. Me and Trepe had our differences, but I ain't got no grudge against her.”

Seifer is uncomfortable with Zell's silence. Zell doesn't know what to say.

“I hope like hell it's not true,” Seifer says, and it sounds like he really means it, “but four days and not a word back to Garden? I hate to say it. She's fuckin' dead, Dincht.”

Zell clenches his fists and draws a hissing breath in through his teeth. Seifer notices, but he doesn't smirk or taunt. He nods, like he agrees.

“Look, I don't go into town much, but I can keep a listen for anything going down,” Seifer says. “I'm so invisible to those assholes they say stuff in front of me all the time, like I can't hear 'em.”

“Yeah,” Zell says. “If you hear anything, let me know.”

Seifer crosses his arms over his chest and drums his fingers against his bicep.

“You talk to that guy on the train yet?” Seifer asks. “I remember him. His room was next to me and Raijin for a few years. Fuckin' psycho Trepie. Had her goddamned picture plastered all over his fuckin' room.”

“I'm looking into it,” Zell says. He turns for the car, then stops and turns around. “Hey Seifer? Thanks.”

“Welcome,” Seifer mutters and goes back to work.

 

  
Quistis wakes to a strange buzzing sound that she can also feel between her legs. She opens her eyes, baffled by this development.

In his hand is a purple vibrator with rabbit ears that he's vigorously thrusting into her. She has one like this in her room at Garden, for those nights when she needs release. Used correctly, it feels incredible.

This. Does not. Feel good.

“Stop,” she murmurs. “Please stop.”

To her shock, he turns it off and stares at her.

“I want to make you cum,” he says. “I keep trying, but... tell me what I'm doing wrong.”

Mocking laughter bubbles up in her throat and she swallows it down. If she laughs at him, he might do something even worse than he's done so far. He might kill her.

“The drugs,” she slurs. “I can't enjoy it if I don't feel anything.”

His eyes light up.

“You think the drugs are making you numb?” he asks, as eager as a puppy.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” he says. “No more drugs. I mean, I'll have to keep you tied up for now. Don't want you running away from me, right?”

He laughs like it's a joke. It isn't funny, but Quistis forces a laugh too.

His fingers twine through her hair and his smile is sweet. He could get any girl he wanted with a smile like that. Why he has to take it, Quistis will never know.

“I know you didn't mean to bite me,” he says. “I'm sorry I got so rough. I was just so mad. I do things I don't mean to do when I'm pissed, you know?”

Quistis nods. He kisses her gently.

“Sleep it off,” he says. “I've got to run out, but I'll be back.”

Quistis sleeps, and when she wakes up, she is alone. She's not sure if this is the first time he's left her, but it is the first time she's woken up alert.

Every single part of her body hurts. Her muscles ache and there's a cramp in the sole of one foot. Nothing hurts worse than the fire between her legs.

She can't say how many times he's used her. Just like she can't say how many days she's been here. Wherever here is.

It looks like a motel room. There are generic framed photos on the wall. The furniture is battered and stained. The carpet is orange shag, a relic from at least forty years ago. There's a phone on one nightstand.

It's too far away for her to reach. She won't be able to turn the old rotary dial anyway. It won't help unless she can get free.

The curtains are drawn, but it's quiet outside. She doesn't hear cars or voices or footsteps. Nothing.

When he returns, it's with a pizza in a cardboard box that advertises a pizzaria in downtown Timber.

So. He hasn't taken her far. There are no motels that she can recall outside city limits.

“Hungry?” he asks. “Hope you like mushrooms.”

She detests them, but with clarity also came hunger. It's been at least a day since she's eaten and it smells heavenly.

“Untie me so I can eat?” she asks.

“Nope.”

“Then how -”

“I'll feed you.”

Quistis is sickened by this suggestion. He's forcing her to be dependent on him. First using the toilet, and now eating.

“Open up,” he says and waves a slice in front of her face.

She takes a bite. Nothing has ever tasted so good in her life.

He allows her once slice, then stashes the box away. His belt comes undone, his shirt comes off, he's standing naked at the end of the bed, admiring the lines of her body. His cock stands at attention, jumping in time with his heartbeat.

“Come here,” she says, and he does.

He's above her, kissing her mouth in earnest. She kisses him back like she truly wants him, like she's not being held hostage here, like her stomach isn't threatening to expel the pizza out of sheer revulsion.

He moans into her mouth and then takes her so roughly, she has to fight back a shriek. It hurts so fucking bad she might actually scream, but she turns those sounds of pain into noises of pleasure.

She has to convince him that she's into this. She has to pretend she loves it. He's vicious and cruel, but he's also gullible and eager, and positive response to his attention will convince him she's not a threat.

He's going at her with all his might, and tears spring to her eyes from the pain. She turns her lips to his ear.

“Too hard,” she says. “Slower.”

He moans, but does as she asks. Quistis moans and moves her hips to simulate pleasure.

“You like that?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says breathlessly. “God, yes. Please don't stop.”

He's grinning, basking in her praise, and she starts to whimper and moan like she's in a porn flick, like it's the best dick she's ever had in her life. He eats it up and starts to go hard at her again. This time she lets him, shrieking like she's getting paid by the hour.

“I'm coming,” she breathes in his ear.

Her back arches off the bed and she thrusts her hips up to meet his, fakes a violent shudder and squeezes the aching muscles of her vagina around his thick cock, simulating climax. It hurts so bad, her screams are real, and he is none the wiser.

In seconds, he's cumming inside her and she suppresses the urge to throw up. It's so much worse now that she doesn't have the drugs to keep the panic and revulsion and the pain at bay.

She has to fake her way through this. It's the only way out.

The second he lets his guard down, he is a dead man.

Quistis finds herself really looking forward to that. 


	3. Chapter 3

Wittaker Davos has just moved in, from the looks of it. There are partially unpacked boxes beside the couch and a trash can full of crumpled newspaper.

The apartment isn't nice, but it's clean. Zell looks around for any sign Quistis is here while Davos pours tea into two glasses. He doesn't see anything out of order.

The bedroom door is open, the bed is made. The bathroom is tiny. A shower stall instead of a tub.

“Just moved in, huh?” Zell asks.

“Last week,” Davos says. “Job transfer, you know? Timber's got a lot of cheap available space to buy.”

“You're in real estate?”

“Yep.”

Zell's seen the boarded up stores and derelict warehouses on the edge of town. Lots of empty houses, too. He's tempted to search them one by one, but that would take days. Maybe weeks. He can't let Quistis wait that long.

"You here by yourself?" 

"For now," Davos says.  "My girl's joining me as soon as she tries up some loose ends."

Zell nods and checks out a series of framed pictures on a bookshelf.

There is a photo of Davos's family in front of an old motel with an ancient neon sign. The Timber Lodge. Davos looks like he's about eight or so in the photo. Cute kid. Big smile. His family looks happy, like they're on a road rip or a family vacation.

Zell's family never had money for vacations. He spent his summers in Balamb at the beach with the local kids. None of them ever went on vacations either. Hard to afford a fancy trip on fishermen's salaries, and anyway, why leave when they already lived in one of the most popular tourist destinations on this side of the world?

The field exam to Dollet was the first time he'd ever left the island. After the war, home felt so small and backwards for a while. The town didn't look the same.

“Here you go,” Davos says and holds out a glass of tea. Zell takes it, but he doesn't drink. Davos gestures to the picture. “What a dork, right?”

“Nah,” Zell says. “Everybody's got embarrassing pictures from when they were kids. My Ma used to have a ton.”

Zell scans the others. They're more of the same. The family in Deling City. Dollet. The beach in Balamb. He notices none of the pictures are recent.

“Your folks still around?” Zell asks.

“They died in a car accident when I was nine,” Davos says. “And my grandparents were too old to look after me so I was sent to Garden.”

“Right,” Zell says. “You like it there?”

“Had some good times, but fighting and all that stuff wasn't my thing,” Davos says. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

Zell turns away from the photos and sits on a frumpy couch. He puts the glass on a coaster on the coffee table. Davos remains standing.

It feels like a power move. Assert your dominance over someone inferior by placing yourself above them. Zell looks him over, but there's nothing that says Davos feels superior. His average face is an open book, he's concerned by the visit, but he's only mildly put off.

“Do you remember Quistis Trepe?” Zell asks. He watches Davos's face for any sign of guilt or concealment, but he only frowns. “She was one of your instructors at Garden.”

“Who could forget Instructor Trepe?” Davos says. “She's pretty unforgettable.”

Zell nods. “Pretty hot, right?”

“Crazy smart, too.”

“She's missing,” Zell says. “Trying to find her.”

“Not sure what that has to do with me,” Davos says.

“You were on the same train,” Zell says. “The early bird, five days ago.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Did you see her?”

“Can't say I did.”

“You didn't?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Anybody else get off the train with you?”

“Seifer Almasy, if you can believe it,” Davos says. “Figured that guy would have found a cave in northern Trabia to hide in for the rest of his life. If you ask me, he's the one you need to look into. I hear he had a thing for her.”

“Heard the same about you,” Zell says, thinking of Seifer's comment about the photos of Quistis in Davos's room. “I've already talked to him.”

“Everybody had a thing for her,” Davos says. “That doesn't make me the kind of guy who would hurt her.”

Zell doesn't get the impression that he is. Something is definitely off, but he's not sure what it is.

“Didn't say you were,” Zell says. “But Almasy said Quistis was talking to some guy in the dining car. I was hoping that somebody was you, maybe you saw something.”

“I slept most of the trip,” Davos says. “I'm sorry I can't be of more help.”

Zell stands up. His drink is still untouched on the table. He hands Davos a card.

“Give me a call if you remember anything or hear anything around town,” Zell says. “Even something you think isn't important, okay? It might help.”

“Sure thing,” Davos says.

Zell steps out into the hall and stops halfway to the stairs. He looks back at Davos' closed door and wonders if he missed something. If there was a question he forgot to ask.

He sighs and continues down the hall and down the stairs. Outside, he looks around the dirty streets. Fear tightens in his chest again.

“I'm sorry, Quistis,” he says. “I don't know where else to look.”

 

 

  
He bathes her again. It's hard to keep her face neutral. Every touch is another humiliation she has to overcome.

This is the hardest thing she's ever had to live through. She would rather fight a thousand battles with just a pocket knife than spend another day his prisoner. Her hope that someone is coming to find her is fading fast. Her determination to survive is waning.

She could provoke him into killing her. It wouldn't be hard. If she has to do this much longer, it might be the only way out.  

Career SeeDs accepted the eventuality of death.  The next mission might be the last.  

Faking it is not working as well as she hoped. He's buying it, but he continues to keep her restrained.

If she doesn't figure a way out soon, his appetite for her body will kill her. She bleeds every time he fucks her, sometimes enough to leave stains on the sheets. Sheets he doesn't change. She doesn't understand how he's not raw and in pain too.

He drains the water, pats her skin dry. Lifts her out and pushes her to her knees. She swallows down bile and closes her eyes.

“Open your mouth.”

She could bite him again. Clamp down and not let go.

She doesn't. Her hands and ankles are taped. She could seriously hurt him, but he would recover faster than she could find a way to remove the bindings.

He'd probably fly into one of his rages and hurt her so bad, there will never be a chance to get free. She has to play this smart. She has to keep a cool head. Plan ahead. Wait for the right moment. That's what she's been trained to do, it's what she trained others to do.

She tunes out and imagines herself at her favorite cafe in Balamb, sipping a mug of double brewed coffee at her favorite table with the view of the bay, chatting with Rinoa or Selphie or Xu. Laughing about something Irvine or Squall did, or bitching about the Trepies, Timber's liberation status, or smart-mouthed cadets.

Enjoying the breeze, the scent of the ocean, the bright, blinding sunshine by herself.

Observing Squall and determining his state of mind by subtle but well known tells.

Spending the afternoon on the beach with Zell, snorkeling on the reefs, eating hot dogs from the food truck by the surf shop. Afternoons spent with him are simple and easy, and he can always be counted on if she needs a date for the Graduation Ball or the Garden festival. There's never any pressure for it to be anything more than it is.

These are things she took for granted. She wants to go home, where she's safe and among friends. Back to her normal life, as abnormal as it is. She wants to forget this. Forget him and the things he's done to her.

But how?

If she lives, how is she supposed to come back from this?

 

 

 

In his hotel room, Zell kicks the leg of a chair and sends it sliding across the floor. He's out of leads, Quistis could be dead, and the level sixes are wrestling over some stupid game when they should be working.

They do what he tells them to do, but there isn't much they can do. That part frustrates him the most. He's out of ideas. There's no information at all. No video, no witnesses, no idea where he should go from here.

What is he supposed to do?

“Give it back!”

“Make me!”

Zell's had enough. He digs through his bag, finds a couple condoms he keeps in his toiletries bag for unplanned adventures, and tosses them on the bed. He channels Seifer and puts on his best sneer.

“I'm going out for a couple hours,” Zell says. “While I'm gone, suck each other off, fuck, whatever you need to do to get your heads in the game!"

“S-sir?” one of the boys stammers.

“Don't give me that sir crap,” Zell says. “You two dipshits are supposed to be helping me and all you've done so far is pretend to fight so you can dry hump each other instead of work! Get your shit together! Get it out of your system and help me fucking find her!”

It's been a while since he let his temper get the best of him. He feels bad, but it's too late to take it back, and now he's being unprofessional.

He walks to the train station. Stands on the platform where Quistis got off and follows the path she must have taken to get to the hotel.

There are a few alleyways that could be a hiding place for a kidnapper, but he already knows there is no camera surveillance on them. He walks down one, and then the other, looking for bloodstains or evidence or a door that leads to a dungeon.

Then, he walks back to the platform. A sign next to the ticket booth mentions a lost and found.

He doesn't know why he's compelled to check there, but he walks up to the counter and lies about leaving an article of clothing on the train.

The attendant gives him a box. There's an assortment of things inside. Lonely gloves, reading glasses, phone chargers, a set of yellowed false teeth, a few wallets.

One of those wallets catches his eye. He picks it up.

It's not a wallet after all. It's a coral colored leather business card holder with the letter Q stamped on the outside. Zell made it for her last birthday. He was happy with how it turned out, but even happier how flattered she was to receive it.

She could have dropped it on the train or the platform, in a hurry to get some rest before meeting the client. He can't rule that out, but his breath catches in his throat when he opens it and the first card in the stack says _Witt Davos_ in fancy script. Beneath that is the name of a real estate developer in Deling City.

“That fucking liar,” he blurts out. “He fucking lied!”

“Is everything okay?” the attendant asks.

Zell pockets the business card holder and returns the box.

“It's all good,” he says. “Didn't find what I was looking for.”

“You can leave a description if you like and we'll call you.”

“Wasn't that important,” he says.

 

 

 

  
Zell calls the number on the card and speaks to the manager.

“He's on a leave of absence,” the manager says. “Might not come back.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that,” Zell says. “He was supposed to show my boss some properties next week.”

“We don't show properties. We buy derelict properties and turn 'em into stuff like restaurant space and apartments and whatnot.”

“So you guys don't do the selling?”

“Nah, my brother in law handles all that.”

“What does Mr. Davos do?”

“What's this about, son?”

“I'm just trying to get in touch with him.”

“Don't know where he is. Like I said, he might not be coming back.”

Zell slams a fist against the steering wheel of the rental car.

“Personal reasons, or...”

“He called me a fuckin' prick and tried to stab me with a letter opener,” the manager says. “All because I wrote him up for missin' work three times in two weeks without an excuse. Now, are you happy? Hear enough?”

“I think I have,” Zell says. “Thanks.”

“You have your boss call me and I'll give 'em a number he can call if he's lookin' for property.”

“Sure thing,” Zell says.

He should go back to Davos's apartment and find out why he lied, but he takes the car out to Seifer's first. There are questions he needs to ask. Questions he forgot to ask before.

Seifer isn't outside, but the front door is open, and Seifer appears on the porch when Zell parks.

“What now?”

“The guy Quistis was talking to in the dining car,” Zell says. “Are you sure it's the Trepie guy from Garden?”

“Positive.”

“You said he was a psycho,” Zell says. “Were you just saying that because the Trepies are all nuts or because you think he's actually, you know, _nuts_?”

Seifer crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the door frame.

“Both.”

“Do you think he's nuts enough to hurt her?”

“I didn't know him that well.”

“Okay, but what do you remember about him, besides the creepy collage on his wall?”

Seifer sighs. He looks at the dirt road beyond Zell's car, then back to Zell.

“You want a beer or something?”

Zell does a good job of hiding his surprise, even though it rattles him. Seifer Almasy is the last person on the entire planet he would expect to extend a courtesy like that. He shouldn't say yes. He's working and shouldn't indulge, but it might take the edge off his anxiety.

“Sure.”

Seifer waves him inside and disappears into the darkness of the shack. The holes in the walls have been patched. The ancient appliances have been replaced with new ones.

Zell takes the offered beer and twists off the cap. Takes a sip.

“Guy had a pretty bad temper,” Seifer says. “Used to hang out with a couple of other Trepies in the cafeteria. You remember that bunch?”

“The ones that complained about everything?”

“Bunch of whiny little shits,” Seifer says. “Anyway, the guy snapped one day. Took me and Raijin to pull him off the other guy. Shoulda seen what he did to him.”

“What were they fighting over?”

“Apparently, his friend said something about Xu's kill record being higher than Quistis's and Witt lost it,” Seifer says. “His buddy ended up with six fractures in his face and a couple missing teeth.”

“Shit,” Zell says. “Was that the only time?”

“Heard there was an incident in Trabia during a field exam,” Seifer says. “Some cadet did something stupid and pissed Trepe off. Next thing you know, the cadet's tongue's hanging out the side of his face 'cause Witt stuck a hunting knife through his cheek.”

“Fuck,” Zell says.

Seifer nods and sips his beer. He doesn't say anything.

“I talked to him,” Zell says. “He didn't come across as anything but a normal dude.”

“He was. Most of the time.”

“How do you know all this?”

“You get real familiar with your dorm mates,” Seifer says. “But after that shit, me and the Posse had to monitor him. Cid's orders. Make sure he didn't jump anybody else.”

“I thought you guys just ran around being bullies.”

Seifer's smile is almost wistful.

“Those were the good old days,” he says.

“Why didn't they throw him out?” Zell asks.

“If they threw him out, they'd have to throw me and Leonhart out, too,” Seifer says.

“Good point,” Zell says. He picks at the label on the bottle. “I'm worried.”

“You should be,” Seifer says.

“You really think she's dead?”

“How's that for irony, huh? Survives going to hell and back, only to be murdered by a fuckin' Trepie.”

Zell refuses to believe she's dead. Flat out refuses to believe it's true. It's possible. It's the most likely outcome, but he can't stomach thinking she died that way.

He finishes the beer. Tosses the bottle in the trash beside the kitchen counter. It lands against a dozen others with a clink.

So this is Seifer's life now. Drinking cheap beer in a rundown shack.

He can't feel sorry for Seifer, though. Seifer never felt sorry for himself.

“I gotta go,” Zell says.

“You know where to look?”

“No,” Zell says, “but if that son of a bitch hurt her, I'm gonna pay him back for it. With interest.”

“Well look at you, all fired up,” Seifer says. “Here I thought Dr. Kadowaki put you on some kind of meds to keep you from bouncing off the walls.”

“You'd feel the same way if it was Fujin.”

Seifer looks away. His lips press into a thin line.

“I'd cut his heart out and shove it straight down his throat,” Seifer says. He shifts and pushes away from the counter. “You need some unofficial muscle?”

“Are you offering to help me?” Zell asks. “Seriously?”

“It's either that or sit around here and wait for my eventual descent into alcoholism.”

“You're worried about her.”

“Not really. Just bored. Wouldn't mind kicking the shit out of somebody,” Seifer says and polishes off his beer. He burps. “It's been a while.”

“Is it so hard to admit you're worried?”

“Fuck, you act like I don't have it in me to give a shit what happens to her,” Seifer says. “We never talk anymore but she's fuckin' family, okay?”

“Who knew you were such a softie.”

“Shaddap.”

 

 

  
She shrinks from him when he caresses her face.

Such a pretty face. Such an amazing woman.

Nothing he does chases the fear from her eyes. She says she loves him, but he’s beginning to worry she’s only saying that to make him happy. He makes her cum, but it’s not enough. He feeds and bathes her and loves her so much it hurts, and she still flinches when he touches her.

“I want to marry you, Quistis Trepe.”

Her lips part and her eyes get wide. Her jaw shakes.

This is not the reaction he expected. She’s supposed to smile and get teary eyed and say yes, yes she wants to be with him forever.

“Don’t you love me?” he asks.

She doesn’t answer right away. If she has to think about it, she doesn’t love him.

Her hesitation rips his heart in two. He’s loved her since the moment he met her. He’s followed her every move for years, sure that someday she would belong to him.

“Why can’t you love me back?”

Her eyes close. Dark blond lashes rest on her cheeks. 

“You can’t force someone to love you,” she says.

His hand snaps out on it's own and smashes into her cheek. Her cry is almost silent. Fury swells around the cracks in his heart. He needs her to hurt the way she’s hurting him. He loves her with his whole heart and this is how she treats him?

He hits her again and her cry this time is louder.

“Fucking cold-hearted bitch.”

The edges of his vision turn black. He’s so pissed, he’s going to explode.

He’s in the bathroom now. A pair of scissors in his hand.

She’s so fucking proud. Thinks she’s too good for him. Parading around with her golden locks and her gorgeous pouty face. He hates that he loves her so much, hates that he can’t live without her. She’s taken so much from him and has given nothing in return. Not for the years he’s devoted to loving her, not for the pleasures he’s given her for the last six days,nor the love and care he’s showed.

Fucking ungrateful _bitch_.

He kneels beside her and shows her the scissors. Her watery eyes widen and she fixes on the blades. Goes very, very still.

Good.

Her hair is so soft. Thick and full and feels like silk in his grip. He takes a handful and holds it away from her head, snips, snips, snips, and it feathers away from her scalp in shiny clumps.

It feels _good_ , and he cuts more and more until there’s not a strand left.

She cowers on the bed, surrounded by the severed locks of her beautiful hair, shellshocked and shaking, a wounded animal who understands she must obey her master.

“Not so proud now, are you?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

He sits beside her, weeping. In his fists are the strands of her sheared hair. He's sorry for what he's done, but Quistis feels nothing.

Her eyes are fixed on the ceiling. There's a brownish water stain, orange around the edges. Black mold blooms in the middle.

Time stretches out before her, endless, infinite, her entire world reduced to this room, this filthy bed, these restraints around her wrists.

She feels nothing, not even the rawness of his repeated assaults or the fear that she will never leave this place alive. A coldness settles in, a dark numbness that spreads through her chest into her limbs and fingers and toes. She's going to die here.

“Your beautiful hair,” he says. “I'm so sorry, Quistis. I'm so, so sorry.”

Quistis loves her hair. It's the one thing about her appearance she really, truly takes pride in, but it's gone now.

It's only hair. It's not a bullet in a vital organ or a knife through an artery. Her heart will keep beating without it.

His hands brush over what remains attached to her scalp. He kisses her on the mouth. His tears fall on her cheeks.

He's asking for forgiveness.

She has none to give. His tears don't move her, his gentle hands don't melt the ice around her heart, and every touch pushes her deeper inside her head.

Memories of better times are all she has.

Girl's night out in Deling City. Shopping with Xu. Garden Festivals and movie nights, dates so bad all she could do was laugh about them later. Squall cracking jokes in a deadpan voice, and eating ice cream on the lawn with Rinoa.

Even the sad memories are better than this.

Memorial services for fallen comrades. The bleakness of her childhood, the isolation of her teens. Watching Seifer fail over and over again in spite of the promise he showed.

Zell standing in the middle of his Ma's kitchen, helpless and surrounded by sympathy bouquets and the remains of farewell casseroles and baked goods brought by thoughtful neighbors. Looking like a little boy in his black suit, tie loosened, no shoes, a lost little boy who couldn't find his way home.

Matron. Edea. Ultimecia.

Time Compression.

She would rather live through all of those things combined than spend one more second a victim.

“I just wanted you to love me,” he says. His eyes are wet.

She looks him in the eye. It's time to end it, it's the only way out.

“I will _never_ love you,” she says. “Not ever.”

His sorrow flips to fury in the blink of an eye. His cheeks turn red and he hurls the severed locks to the floor. A hand latches around her throat. Fingers dig in.

A blast of icy fire hits the right side of her face. The smell registers first. It's the smell of ice and cold and snow, the winter winds of Trabia. Crystals form on her skin, on the sheets, her bare shoulder, but it burns hotter than flame.

He's fired off a Blizzaga at point blank range.

Her mind assesses the possible damage in a clinical way. Frostbite is likely. Some blistering. May leave scars. She wonders how he is able to cast magic as powerful as this. He is not a SeeD. Never was a SeeD.

She remembered those with latent, inborn magical abilities because they were so rare. To her recollection, he was not one of them.

The pain sets in along with a chill that goes deep into her bones, and knowing _how_ is not so important.

Something sharp punctures the skin at her hairline, a cold fire that tears down the left side of her forehead and pierces her eyelid. A steady, aching pressure there, a burst of stars against reddish black, then a pop.

Quistis has never felt pain like this before. It's agonizing, all her nerve endings sing and prickle, and she screams, screams, fights against restraints that won't give, thrashes against the filthy mattress, and feels the first swell of power building low in her abdomen.

The sharp thing resumes its track down her face, from the bottom of her left eye socket to her chin. She smells blood, feels the warm flow from the wound. Her body vibrates with energy. She can barely see.

“Look what you made me do,” he whines. His hands are bloody, the scissors gleam red. “Why do you make me hurt you like this?”

It blasts out of her, white hot and electric, and knocks him back and away. She almost doesn't hear his howl over the crackling of magic pouring out of her. Wave after wave of it rips from beneath her skin, from that awful part of herself she's always hated and others call a gift, until darkness overtakes her, and her body goes limp against the bed once more.

All she can see of him is one foot sticking out from behind the foot board.

He doesn't move.

Maybe now she can rest.

 

 

Zell drives back to Davos's apartment, Seifer riding shotgun, and his blood boiling. If this guy has her, if he's laid a hand on her, touched a strand of hair on her head, Zell will kill him. No remorse, no hesitation, no fucking mercy.

He hasn't been this pissed about anything in a long time. He's learned to manage his temper through yoga and sessions with a therapist, but he has to admit it was Ma's death that really took the wind out of his sails. He carries too much guilt over that to be angry with anyone but himself anymore.

She passed away two years ago, a heart attack. Zell was gone on a mission. He didn't get to say goodbye. Didn't get to hold her hand and tell her he loved her before she went.

He hates himself for that. He took her for granted. Thought she would outlive him. Thought she would be the one planning his funeral and not the other way around.

It was Quistis who helped him make the arrangements and pack up Ma's things for donation. He kept the sentimental things, the pictures and silly flotsam of Ma's 65 years of life, but they sit in boxes in the attic. Boxes that he can't bring himself to open yet. Stored away in a house he can't find the courage to return to.

Zell loves her for being there. The others were too, but not in the same way. Irvine thinks the solution to every problem is either guns, pussy, or alcohol. Squall tried to be supportive, but the best he could manage was a pat on the arm and awkward conversation. Selphie doesn't have the attention span.

Rinoa understood. She'd been there, but at the time, she was involved in negotiations for Timber's liberation. She called almost every day, but Zell didn't have much to say.

He's lucky to have such good friends. He's not prepared to lose even one. 

“Watch the road, dipshit,” Seifer says.

The man sitting next to him is not such a good friend, but he's here. Zell might even forgive him if he comes through for Quistis, and isn't just along for the ride because he's bored.

“Seriously, Dincht, who taught you to drive? A fuckin' drunk Moomba?”

“Sorry.”

Seifer mutters something under his breath and latches his seat belt. Zell stops thinking about the past and focuses on the road. On finding Quistis.

Minutes later, he parks in front of the apartment building. His anger and fear distill into a single purpose. If he has to kill this guy to get Quistis back, then so be it.

He cracks his knuckles and gets out of the car, locks it, and up the stairs they go. Seifer says nothing but he's tense and his eyes shift all around the space, cataloging the exit points, counting doors and the potential for witnesses. He might not have become a SeeD, but the things he learned haven't left him.

No one answers when Zell knocks. He tries again.

“Shit,” he says, when his second attempt is unanswered. “I guess we need to find the super.”

The corner of Seifer's mouth curls upward. Not quite a smirk.

“Give me your wallet.”

“No!” Zell says. “What for?”

“Give it and I'll show you.”

Zell hands it over. Seifer removes Zell's SeeD ID and slides it between the door and the jamb. There is a soft click, Seifer turns the knob, and the door creaks open. Zell sputters and waves his hand at the gap.

“Looks like it was already open,” Seifer says. He hands Zell his wallet. “They didn't teach you basic B & E back at Garden? Come on. See what we can find.”

Zell follows him inside. Davos didn't do much unpacking after Zell left. Everything looks the same except for the shoebox on the coffee table.

Seifer wanders into the kitchen and reaches for the fridge.

“Don't touch anything!” Zell says. He digs a pair of latex gloves from his emergency kit and tosses them on the counter. “Put those on.”

Seifer holds them up and sneers.

“These ain't gonna fit me,” he says.

“Try,” Zell says. He pulls on his own pair. “Or don't touch anything. And wipe that doorknob before you forget.”

“Yes, sir, right away sir,” Seifer says.

The gloves don't fit Seifer, but he stretches them as far as they will go over his massive hands. His fingerprints are covered, and that is good enough for Zell. He doesn't want to risk anything falling back on them from this illegal entry and search. He doesn't want any evidence left behind if he can help it.

He digs into the shoe box while Seifer begins a search of the kitchen. Inside the box are dozens of envelopes. Letters, Zell thinks, until he opens one and a handful of photographs spill out.

They're all of Quistis. Recent photos, taken in Balamb. She's at the Seaside Cafe with Xu, smiling over a cup of coffee, her day off, her hair loose. Unaware that she's being watched. In others, they're looking through a shop window at shoes and handbags.

He opens another envelope. More of the same, but this time, Quistis is on a train, a file in her lap, pouring over details of whatever mission she was on.

Another envelope is from a children's charity ball at the hotel in Galbadia, six months ago. Quistis, draped in red silk, her hair artfully pinned with pretty jeweled clips. Zell, the lucky guy at her side in a suit and matching red silk tie. Quistis attended on Cid's behalf and asked him, as she always did when Zell was single, to be her date.

Dozens and dozens of shots, taken without either of them knowing.

He thumbs through envelopes that go all the way back to her days as an instructor.

This guy has been quietly stalking her for years. Nobody noticed.

Zell feels sick.

He opens a final envelope, expecting to find more shots of the young instructor, but they aren't. It takes a few seconds to process what he's seeing, but when he does, he flings them down and jumps to his feet. Heat and anger fill his blood and he spits out curses until a wave of nausea hits him and he lurches for the bathroom.

He doesn't puke, but he's close. He leans over the toilet bowl and counts backward from ten, exhales, and draws in a slow breath. His eyes are burning with tears that he's not going to cry in front of Seifer, no matter how bad those pictures are.

A curse behind him lets him know Seifer has seen what he saw.

Zell pulls it together at the sound of footsteps behind him. Wipes the sweat from his forehead and the drool from his lips.

He needn't bother. Seifer's face has turned gray, his eyes rimmed in red.

“Found some keys,” Seifer says. “Don't know if they go to anything, but.”

Zell nods and wipes his mouth. He holds out a gloved hand. Seifer drops two sets of keys into his palm and Zell examines them.

Twenty-four identical, numbered keys, plus several of other shapes and sizes.

There are two tags. One says Maintenance. The other, Housekeeping.

He looks at them. Then at Seifer.

Zell pushes past him. Back in the living room, he finds the photograph of Davos and family at the Timber Lodge. Smiling.

“Seifer?” Zell says. “You know this place?”

Seifer squints at the picture.

“I know it,” he says. “Name's different, but yeah. Out there past the train yard, off the old logging road. Been closed for years.”

The lodge has been closed for years. No vacancies. No one around to hear her scream. He hopes it's not too late.

Zell meets his eye.

“Perfect place,” he begins.

“To keep a hostage,” Seifer finishes. “Fuck.”

Zell tosses a set of keys to Seifer.

“We're taking her home.”

 

 

 

He's on the floor, groaning. Quistis can't see him anymore, but it's hard to see anything. She's sure her left eye is damaged beyond repair. The right one is swollen and her vision cloudy, compromised. Both sides of her face throb, but nothing hurts worse than her left eye socket. It feels like someone has taken a blowtorch to it every time she moves.

Impossibly, she sleeps. When she wakes, she can't hear him anymore.

That doesn't mean he's gone.

She waits, motionless and tense, listening for any sound. A footstep. A breath. A groan.

There is nothing but the distant rumble of a train.

Has he abandoned her here to die of dehydration?

She doesn't want to be found this way. Bound and lying upon a blood, semen, and soon to be urine and feces stained mattress. Bloated and reeking, with insects crawling over her rotting skin. Or dried, shriveled, mummified by her own flesh. Nothing left but bones. It all depends on when they find her. Days. Weeks. Years. A decade or two. Who knows?

She doesn't want to die here. Not like this.

Please. God. Not like this.

The hours tick by and day bleeds into night. She's hungry, thirsty, and her head is spinning. She's shivering, sweating, but cold. Her teeth knock together and it worsens the pain in her face and head, but there's no controlling it. Shock is setting in. She knows the signs.

How much blood has she lost?

How bad are her injuries?

Is he done with her now, or will he return to finish her off?

She doesn't know.

She drifts, half conscious, until the rumble of an engine brings her back. A car door slams. Then another, and another.

Voices. Men's voices. Hushed, urgent.

Footsteps.

Quistis holds her breath. _No_ , she wants to scream, _no, no, no_. He's come back and brought friends. He's brought friends to further destroy and humiliate her. Panic tightens her throat. Her dry mouth fills with spit. She considers biting off her own tongue, bleeding to death so that she does not have to face anymore indignity.

Someone calls her name. It's close, but not close enough, an inquiry, _Quistis, are you here?_

“Trepe? Where the fuck are you?”

That voice is not one she expects to hear. A voice so familiar, one that stirs so many conflicted emotions in her heart. A dark whisper in her head says he's in on this. He helped bring her to her knees, he's an accomplice.

_I failed at everything I ever tried to do. Leave me the fuck alone, Trepe._

Seifer is many things. He can be cruel, deadly, foul-mouthed, and impulsive, but one thing he has never been is violent with women outside of training, even if he could be unkind.

He would not do this to her. Not even if he truly hated her. She is sure of this.

“Quistis?”

A moan escapes her lips. She knows that voice too, and it brings relief and hope.

They've come to find her.

She opens her mouth, draws in a deep breath, and screams.

“Shit. Over there?”

Footsteps, louder, faster, closer. The jangle of keys.

Light spills in from outside. Her heart stops. Her hope dies.

The man in the doorway is not here to save her.

He's here to kill her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read this far, a kudos would be super nice. This is not a fun story to write. Could use a little external validation, ya know?


	5. Chapter 5

Zell's stomach twists when he pulls up to the motel and puts the car in park. Looks like the place has power, but it's run down and reminds him of a horror movie he once saw. His skin prickles and he glances at Seifer in the passenger seat.

“This looks like a bad night waiting to happen,” Seifer says.

Zell shuts off the engine and turns to the two dorks in the back seat. “You two, search the grounds. Me and Seifer will check the rooms.”

All four get out and Zell surveys the building. It's a low, squat, single story, shaped like an L. Office at the nearest end, a laundry or maintenance room at the other.

There are no other vehicles parked in the lot. No lights burn behind closed curtains. Just the security lights mounted next to every room and a pair on poles in the lot.

He'd feel a lot better if Squall and team were already here, but waiting for back up is not an option. The Ragnarok can only fly so fast.

“Let's start looking,” Zell says.

He calls out her name. Urges her to answer. Seifer does too.

The first room is empty and dark. A stripped down mattress dominates the space and an ancient television sits on the floor beside a rotting dresser. It's all coated in dust. Cobwebs stir on the breeze in the corners.

“Trepe, where the fuck are you?” Seifer demands as they approach the next room. Zell shouts her name. “She better not be fucking dead.”

“Shut up,” Zell says. “She's not dead.”

“If she isn't, then she's not here.”

“Maybe she can't answer us right now,” Zell says. “You think of that?”

Seifer grumbles under his breath.

He unlocks the second door. More of the same.

“Shit,” Seifer says. “This place is a hellhole.”

A scream comes from somewhere not so far away. Zell's heart leaps and he spins around and looks toward the middle of the building, where the two sections meet.

“Over there?” Zell asks. “On that side?”

“Can't tell,” Seifer says. “That was definitely her.”

“Yeah? How can you tell?” Zell asks. He breaks into a sprint.

“She used to screech at me like that back when we were cadets,” Seifer says, following close behind. “I'd pull her braid in the hall. She'd scream and punch me in the solar plexus.”

“You're lucky that's all she did.”

“I know,” Seifer says fondly.

A shadow moves near the far end of the building. Someone running. The scream dies off and a door closes with a distinct thump.

Zell curses and pours on the speed.

“You see which door that was?” he asks Seifer.

“Third from the end,” Seifer says.

His eyes are gleaming. He's ready for a fight. Zell too. He can't wait to make Davos eat a mouthful of knuckle sandwich, but Quistis comes first.

Zell already has the keys in hand when they reach the door. He slips it into the lock and flings the door wide open to the sound of muffled screams, a warning, a sound of relief, he's not sure. It's too dark to see and his heart is beating too fast to hear clearly.

There's a loud crack that he feels in the air around him. Something hits him in the chest. He stumbles back and finds himself flat on his back with something hideous and massive above him. Warm, wet saliva drips onto his cheek and he gags on its noxious breath.

“Holy shit,” Seifer says. “Is that what I think it is?”

Eden.

It's Eden. Quistis' GF.

“Call it off, Quisty,” Zell says. Eden's jaw unhinges, like a serpent about to swallow its prey. “Please.”

“It's not me,” she says. She sounds so weak, so young, so scared, but Zell's so happy to hear her voice, his eyes tear up. “I'm not junctioned.”

The world around him erupts in fire. It burns amber-gold, wild but somehow also contained, and it tears along the edge of the door frame twisting and licking like something alive.

Seifer and his magic. Thank god for small favors.

Eden shrinks from the flames, shimmers, and then dissolves. Wittaker Davos stands in the middle of the room, pale, trembling and wild eyed, with a gun aimed at Quistis.

“I will kill her,” he says. “If I can't have her, neither can you.”

“Hyne, will you listen to yourself?” Seifer says. “Wahh-wahh. Can't get what you want so you gotta have a little crybaby tantrum about it like a wuss.”

“I mean it.”

Davos's finger tightens around the trigger. He really does mean it.

“Hey asshole!!!” Zell shouts and jumps to his feet.

He bursts forward, knocking Davos to the floor. The gun goes off, there's a blast of fire in Zell's shoulder, a roaring, rushing sound in his ears, and then he's the one on the carpet, stunned enough to keep from getting up.

Seifer curses and Zell pushes to his knees to the sound of two sets of retreating footsteps, gunfire, and Seifer's steady stream of cursing.

“Zell?” Quistis asks. Her voice is shredded and raw. “Is that really you?”

The darkness is spinning all around him, but he fights to his feet, stumbles to the wall and flicks on the light.

It's the long strands of hair all over the floor and the mattress that he notices first. Spun gold strewn about to decorate a hellish, gloomy place. On the nightstand, a pair of needles, a purple dildo, a dirty glass with a straw in it.

Then, her face.

Her face.

God.

His mind breaks when he sees what's been done to her.

One side is mottled in burns and blisters, the other he can barely look at. There's a long, ragged cut from hairline to chin, the blood long dried to black crust. Her left eye is clotted shut and ringed in purple. Can't tell how bad it really is, but it's bad enough. Around her neck are bruises, blackish with green and yellow around the edges.

Her beautiful hair is gone, clipped almost to the scalp. She doesn't even look like herself.

Worst of all, she's naked and tied to the bed. Blood and God knows what else stains the sheets.

He can smell it. He knows the scent of sex, that musky odor of sweat and semen and lust.

His stomach turns. He's going to throw up.

Not now.

Not now, when Quistis needs him to hold it together. He can fall apart later, when no one is around. He has to make sure she's safe first.

“You're bleeding,” she says.

“It's cool,” he promises and pushes his revulsion and sorrow all the way down until duty takes over. “I'm gonna get you out of here.”

In a daze, he unlocks the restraints. Doesn't look at the fingerprint shaped bruises on her breasts, or the creamy white of her thighs, dotted with purple-black. He tends to her wounds as best as he can with magic and potions.

She's shivering and far away. She barely answers his questions and her eyes have gone glassy. Her skin is cold to the touch.

He finds a clean blanket to cover her nakedness with. She deserves a little dignity, and he can't stand to look at the marks he's left on her skin.

He calls Squall while he investigates the bathroom. There's nothing of note except a few dozen empty potion bottles in the trash and a dried smear of blood on the floor beside the tub.

“We found her,” Zell says. “She's alive.”

“We're in the air,” Squall says. Behind his voice, engines roar. “Should land in about forty minutes.”

This is a relief. The sooner they get her out of here, the better.

“How is she?” Squall asks quietly.

“Fucked up,” Zell says. He wants to elaborate, to prepare Squall for what he's going to find here, to tell him about her face, and the obvious signs of rape, but he can't. “It's pretty bad.”

“Is she conscious?” Squall asks. “Injured?”

“She's not critical, but I'm seeing signs of shock,” Zell says. “It's... it's bad, man.”

Squall would normally ask him to clarify. He's a man who wants all the details in as few words as possible, as soon as possible. He doesn't and falls into silence for a minute.

“I've got Dr. Kadowaki on board,” Squall says. “You know what to do for shock. Take care of her until we get there.”

“Already done, man.”

Zell is suddenly worried there will be a crew of people in here, people who don't know Quistis well, people who will bring word of this back to Garden and spread rumors. This needs to stay as quiet as possible, for Quistis' sake, until she wants it known. If she ever wants it known.

“Who else is with you?”

“Just Nida and a couple of combat trained medics.”

Thank the stars he didn't bring Selphie. She's a good pilot, but an overbearing friend.

“Good,” Zell says. “That's good.”

Zell hears Seifer running his mouth outside. He steps out the door to see what's going on, hopes that Seifer's stuck his Hyperion through Davos's gut so that he can tell Quistis she's safe.

“Is that Seifer?” Squall asks.

“Yeah,” Zell says. “He offered to help. Figured it couldn't hurt.”

“And you're sure he's not involved?”

“Positive,” Zell says. “He's done some fucked up things, and I hate his damn guts, but I know he wouldn't do something like this.”

Squall falls silent again.

'I'm gonna let you go,” Zell says. “See you when you get here.”

He hangs up and returns to the bed, where Quistis shivers under the blanket. He props her feet up on a pair of pillows and searches for her clothes and belongings. Something to warm her up, something besides the scratchy blanket.

Beside the window is an air con unit that has heat. He turns that on, then goes to the door at the sound of Seifer's unintelligible ranting.

Seifer is alone, and he's pissed. There's a streak of blood on his forehead and his eyes are half mad.

“You get him?” Zell asks.

“Fucker tried to eat me,” Seifer snaps.

In any other context, that statement would be funny, but Zell's already dark mood turns black.

“You lost him?”

“Summoned Eden, almost took me out,” Seifer says.

“So you lost him.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck!” Zell shouts. “Goddamn it!”

“Not my fault, alright?” Seifer says.

“What if he comes after her again?” Zell shouts. “Huh? What then?”

“Relax. She'll have all of Garden on watch,” Seifer says. “He won't get near her again.”

“Fuck!”

“Calm the hell down,” Seifer says. He moves closer. “Dincht, you get shot?”

Zell looks down at himself. Blood has soaked through the sleeve of his shirt. Only now does he feel the bullet lodged in his shoulder. His left arm goes numb, but he can feel his pulse in his fingertips.

It's not life threatening. Nothing a potion won't take care of.

 

 

  
Zell's got that look Quistis has seen a million times. He's a soldier who has learned not to look at the carnage on a battlefield. It makes him cagey and abrupt, but she understands why. It's easier to get through it when one tunes out all the nastiness around them.

She's too relieved he's here for it to matter, and she doesn't flinch or fight when he tends to her wounds with a seasoned field medic's efficiency. Potions and magic ease the pain in her body, but they don't do anything to erase her memories.

That's what GF's are for. She suspects that's why Garden uses them so liberally. So they can forget the things they see and do. If only they didn't eat the good memories, too.

A part of her wants him to look, to acknowledge the numerous violations she's suffered so she's not alone in carrying them, but a greater part of her is glad he doesn't linger on them. He's respectful and professional, calm and level headed. Almost a different man.

She tunes out while he's on the phone and revels in the sensation of healing. Wounds knit closed with a bubbling sensation, a different kind of ache, not exactly pleasant but not exactly unpleasant. It's similar to the feeling of stretching a sore muscle and cracking joints to relieve pressure.

Blankets, magic, and the heater ease the chill. Slowly, the cold in her bones melts and the blue-white in her compromised vision fades. Her teeth stop chattering.

He has words with Seifer at the door. Zell's shouting at him, his words a jumble to Quistis's ears. She still doesn't know why Seifer is here, but it looks like the two are on the same side for the moment. Having both of them posted at the door brings a sense of protection, of safety, that she hasn't felt in days.

Seifer peers into the room and a stream of curses fall from his mouth. She's not prepared for the pity she sees in his eyes. Seifer doesn't have it in him to pity anyone else, and if he does, he's not likely to show it.

His curses fall away and he hangs his head. She hears something like a choked sob before he turns his back and he flees into the corridor. Her wounds must be bad. Worse than she thought.

Zell heaves a great sigh and turns to her. His face is lined with worry and he pushes a gloved hand through the limp spikes of hair sticking this way and that. He starts to pace the room.

“How long have I been here?” she asks.

Zell turns around and blinks at her. He seems surprised to hear her speak.

“Almost a week.”

Quistis is shocked to hear it's been that long. It simultaneously feels like an eternity and just a few hours.

“It's over,” Zell says. His words sound like an oath. “We're taking you home.”

She likes the sound of that. Home. They're going home. The word swirls around inside her head, a whisper that becomes a shout, and a fierce panic swells inside her chest. She smells a week's worth of sex in the air, blood, cum, sweat, fear, and also the moldering walls and old, rotting carpet. Can't look anywhere without seeing the shimmering gold wreckage of her hair.

She wants to go home, and she wants to go now.

“I can't stand the thought of being in this room a second longer,” she says. “Is there somewhere else we can wait?”

Zell's eyes tear up. He rubs them with his gloved hands, but he nods and moves to the bed. He helps her stand, but her legs are weak from days upon days of lying prone. They tremble beneath her and her chafed and bruised inner thighs rub together.

“I could carry you,” Zell says. “You cool with that?”

Quistis would prefer to walk out of here on her own with her head held high, but that isn't going to happen. She nods and Zell unties the hoodie around his waist and zips her into it.  Then he arranges the blanket around her body so she's completely covered.

He lifts her into his arms like a bride, one arm hooked under her knees and the other cradling her back. He's never looked particularly strong. His small stature and lean muscle are terribly deceptive. That's an advantage in a fight, but Quistis is surprised when he carries her out of the room like she's an empty paper bag.

The night air is cool and refreshing. She takes a deep breath of it, catches a whiff of herself, and can't help the ugly sob that bursts from her lips. The smell of that room and the violation she suffered there clings to her skin. If she can smell it, so can he.

Zell's arms tighten and it feels good. The warmth of his chest against her side feels _good_. His hoodie smells of woodsy aftershave and soap and sweat, but it's a comforting combination.

She's fighting back sobs when he sits on the hood of a car and his grip loosens. She stays in his lap, her head against his shoulder and struggles to keep her emotions in check.

“It's okay,” he says. “I don't mind being your snot rag.”

Quistis laughs around a sob, then she breaks.

She's not crying because the last week has been a  actual living nightmare. She's put all that in the back of her mind where it can't hurt her. She's crying because he's here. Because his scent and his arms feel like home, like a safe place, like the worst is over.

She's glad it's him and not one of the others, except maybe Rinoa, who would be just as caring as Zell, in her own way, maybe even more understanding because she's a woman and she knows this fear.

Xu has spent too many years on the job to be sympathetic. Squall wouldn't be able to look her in the eye. Selphie would scream and cry. Irvine might actually pass out.

Quistis apologizes when the sobbing stops.

“Shaddap,” Zell says. “I've got no right to judge.”

His arms slip around her, one around her waist, the other slung around her shoulders. He tucks her head under his chin and bows his face into what's left of her hair. She doesn't know how he can stand the smell.

Gravel crunches, footsteps, then the car dips under new weight.

“You alright, Trepe?” Seifer asks, then he laughs. “I know you're not, but I gotta ask.”

Quistis echoes his laughter, and he squeezes her shoulder through the blanket. A big, warm hand that stays only a second.

“Too bad I didn't get to kill him for you,” he says. “I would've enjoyed that.”

Seifer will never say he's sorry, but Quistis takes it as an apology. It _is_ too bad. Now, she'll spend her days worried he'll come back for her, looking over her shoulder, double checking the locks.

“We'll get him,” Zell says. “Promise.”

 _Not if I get to him first_ , Quistis thinks.

 

 

 

  
Zell hears the Ragnarok before he sees it. He bundles the blanket around Quistis a little tighter and watches the sky.

“Guess that's my cue to split,” Seifer says. He stands and cracks his knuckles. “It's been real.”

“You don't have to go,” Quistis says.

“Yeah, stick around,” Zell says. “Squall's gonna want the details, and you know, you helped out, so, you know.”

Seifer pauses. He's deliberately avoiding looking at Quistis' face. It's still a mess. Zell did what he could, but she'll have some scars.

“Come on,” Zell says. “I know you're not in any hurry to get back to that squirrel's nest you call a shack.”

Seifer narrows his eyes and he scowls. Arms cross over his chest. Zell thinks maybe Seifer's about to verbally abuse him, but he doesn't.

“You know those little assholes ate an entire loaf of bread?” Seifer complains. “And one tried to crawl in bed with me yesterday morning. Crawled all the way up my fuckin' leg. I'd take a blowtorch to every last one of them and turn them into soup if they weren't so goddamned cute.”

Quistis laughs. The sound of it eases Zell's worry a little. She smiles at Seifer, winces, and then her body ripples with a shuddering sigh.

She's in pain. Doing a good job of hiding it, but he can feel her shallow breaths and her racing heartbeat. Whatever hurts, he wishes he could make it stop.

“Seriously,” Seifer says. “I hate the fuckin' things, but then they look at me with those stupid, beady little eyes and sit up on their back legs and I turn into Raijin freaking out over butterflies or some dumb shit.”

Quistis laughs again, but this time she relaxes into him, and Zell is so, _so_ grateful that Seifer is here. He never imagined he’d ever feel anything like gratitude in Seifer’s presence. The idea of it is absurd, but as ridiculous as it is, he's kept both Zell and Quistis from falling to pieces. He suspects Seifer knows that.

The Ragnarok is overhead now, circling around to land in the field adjacent to the motel. He can't wait to get Quistis home, where she's safe.

Seifer cuts his eyes at Quistis and looks at her for the first time.

“Don't you go spreading that around, Trepe,” he says. “I have a reputation to protect.”

“Secret's safe with me,” Quistis says. Zell feels her giggle, even if he can't hear it. “Sergeant Squirrel.”

Seifer's jaw drops, he sputters, and points a finger at her.

“You. You're back on my list.”

Zell hides his grin against the top of Quistis' head. Where before she was cold, she feels feverish now. Could just be the blanket and the laughter, but he's worried. Worried her wounds are worse than he thought, and worried something went untreated for too long and she's developed an infection. Potions and magic don't treat that.

The Ragnarok is landing now, and Zell decides to meet them. The sooner he can get her away from this place, the better.

“Yo, you coming?” Zell asks Seifer and gestures at the airship. “Or you gonna stay behind and wage war against the legion of adorable, beady eyed beasts? I mean, get enough of them under the covers with you and they might keep you warm at night.”

“Ha ha,” Seifer says. “Maybe you should move in there instead. That's the only way anyone's keeping _you_ warm at night, Chicken-Wuss.”

Zell doesn't take the bait. He offers Seifer his best shit eating grin and a middle finger.

“Yes or no?” he asks.

Seifer seems conflicted. His anxious glance at the Ragnarok tells on him. He's scared shitless of facing Squall again.

“Suppose I could try and squeeze some Gil out of Leonhart for my trouble,” he says, too casually.

“Good luck with that,” Quistis murmurs, but Seifer can't hear her over the roar of the Ragnarok's engines.

“Ready to go home?” Zell asks her.

Quistis takes a deep, shuddering breath. Her arms tighten around his neck.

“Yes,” she says. “Let's go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the really nasty stuff. The rest is more hurt/comfort and friends to lovers fluff, with a little angst and action thrown in. 
> 
> Thank you to the readers that were kind enough to comment or leave kudos. Yous guise are the best.


	6. Chapter 6

Zell has to give Dr. Kadowaki some credit. There is only a split second flash of horror in her eyes when Zell brings Quistis into the small infirmary aboard the Ragnarok. Just a split second and then she is a professional again.

Kadowaki has seen everything over the years. Bones sticking out, gunshots wounds, limbs hanging on by a thread. It takes a lot to rattle her. This has, but Zell understands it isn't because Quistis's face is destroyed. It's because it's Quistis, and Quistis is and always has been one of her favorites.

"Let's get her on the exam table, Zell," Kadowaki says.

Zell gently places Quistis on the table, and he takes great care not to injure her further. Quistis cries out anyway and Zell whispers his apology around the knot in his throat.

She looks even worse under the bright light above the bed. Her skin is sallow and bruises he didn't notice before cover her arms and ring her throat.

He's going to lose it. He's divided between sorrow and white-hot rage. She never should have had to go through this.

"Zell," Dr. Kadowaki says and waves him off to the door. "If you don't mind giving us a little privacy."

Zell nods, but Quistis latches onto his wrist.

"No," Quistis says. "I want him to stay. Please."

She sounds so small and scared. He doesn't want to watch this, but he won't tell her no if she needs him here. He looks to Kadowaki.

"Are you sure?" Kadowaki asks. "This might be uncomfortable for both of you."

"I'm sure," Quistis says. "If it's okay."

Zell doesn't want to stay and watch her suffer further indignities. Kadowaki will treat her wounds first, and then she will collect evidence of the rape. Zell knows how it works.

As a student, that classroom lesson had been ugly and awful and graphic. As a SeeD, he's handled victims, but it was always a woman who took over for this part. Even when the victim was male.

What kind of friend would he turned her away now?

"Yeah, okay," he says. "I'll stay."

Quistis's face collapses but her sigh is a sigh of relief. Zell takes her hand and seats himself on a stool beside the table and helps her out of the hoodie. There are more bruises. On her ribs and breasts, her neck, shoulders. Both her nipples are red and raw. There is a bite mark on the underside of her left breast.

He doesn't want to see this, but he does. Each bruise and mark and wound hits him like a fist to the sternum. He wants to wrap her up and protect her from this. Maybe if he'd figured out where she was sooner, it wouldn't have been this bad.

Dr. Kadowaki produces a needle and takes Quistis's arm. Quistis slaps the needle from her hand. The syringe hits the floor and slides under the bed.

"No!"

"Quistis!" Kadowaki scolds.

"No drugs. Please. No. Please, please, please..."

"What I need to do will hurt," Kadowaki says gently. "This will help with the pain."

Quistis's breaths are panicky and her lips shake. She's so exposed under the bright light, Zell wants to cover her with the sheet. She deserves at least that.

"No," Quistis says. "I don't want it."

Kadowaki looks to Zell. Zell is too choked up to speak, his throat too tight to force the words out. All he can do to explain this to the doctor is show her.

He eases the hand he is holding to the mattress to show Kadowaki the needle marks in the crook of Quistis's arm. There are at least a dozen.

"He kept you drugged," Kadowaki says.

Zell can only nod. Quistis exhales and shudders.

"Okay. No drugs," Kadowaki says, the reluctance plain in her tone. "But if you change your mind, I'm happy to give you something for the pain."

Dr. Kadowaki examines her face first. Quistis's damaged eye socket is the worst of her injuries and she cries out when the doctor tries to part the crusted lid to look at the eyeball beneath. Quistis's hand tightens on Zell's and Zell has to look away when Kadowaki peels back the upper lid.

Zell knows right then, Quistis will loose the eye.

 

 

Squall looks around the filthy hotel room and a numbness settles in his stomach. He's seen worse. It shouldn't bother him. It wouldn't bother him if the victim wasn't a woman he knows and respects. Any other time, he can compartmentalize and put aside his personal feelings. Any other time, he can look at a scene like this objectively.

This is the first time since the war that he's been unable to be 100% objective on the job.

He mentally catalogs the evidence, the blood and semen stained sheets, the Velcro restraints attached to the headboard, the needles, the sex toy, and the stack of empty pizza boxes. The remnants of her hair are strewn everywhere like holiday tinsel.

He walks a slow circuit around the room, glances at the trash bin beside the bed, and then checks the bath. Seifer hovers in the doorway behind him.

The trash in here is full of empty potions, but he notes there are no discarded condoms or wrappers in either receptacle.

There's something about that that makes Squall sick to his stomach. Bad enough what Davos has done but to do it without protection seems like an even greater violation.

"I want photos of everything," he says to the two members of Zell's team. "Don't touch anything until you're ready to bag it."

They're going to be here for hours. Davos is in the wind, but the more evidence they have, the more likely a court will convict.

"Would you give me a hand searching Davos's apartment?" he asks Seifer.

Seifer pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue and nods. He seems relieved to get out of here and he's too quiet. Not himself at all.

"We'll take Zell's rental," Squall says. He turns to the SeeDs. "If he comes back, you're authorized to use deadly force. Don't hesitate. Take him out."

They don't talk on the way. It isn't like Seifer to keep his mouth shut but Squall prefers the silence to awkward small talk. He knows what Seifer has been up to. He gets regular briefings on his whereabouts and activities. There's no point in asking questions he already knows the answer to.

Squall pulls up to the curb in front of a run down apartment building. Bags of trash are heaped on the sidewalk and he remembers there has been a sanitation strike in Timber. With no money to pay city employees, and none in the foreseeable future, Squall has it from a reliable source that the problem will only get worse.

This is a problem he won't concern himself with tonight.

"If you find him, I can make him disappear," Seifer says after Squall shuts off the engine. "I'd be fuckin' happy to do it."

Squall finds that he isn't opposed to the idea. He can count on Seifer to pay Davos back for the damage he's done, and it wouldn't be the first time he made an arrangement without a written contract.

"Twenty-thousand, off book," Squall says. "And you have yourself a deal."

Squall doesn't wait for Seifer's answer. He already knows it's yes.

 

 

 

Zell is sweating under the surgical light, both of his hands clasped around Quistis's. He's been in this room for hours now, watching Dr. Kadowaki methodically remove Quistis's damaged eye and stitch the lid closed.

Quistis further refused the pain medication and the offer to be sedated for the surgery. The only thing she has allowed is a potent antibiotic injection and a nutrient drip for dehydration.

The surgery is awful. Quistis is in excruciating pain the whole time and there's nothing he can say to convince her to take the meds. She doesn't cry or make a sound but the strain is evident in her grip and in the tension in her body.

He thinks the worst is over when Kadowaki is done stitching her up, but it isn't. Kadowaki places Quistis's feet in stirrups and covers her thighs with a sheet. Zell can't see what's going on down there, and he's glad for that.

"Alright, Quistis," Kadowaki says. "Just relax. I'll try to make this as quick and painless as possible."

Quistis's lips press together and her hand tightens around Zell's. He can feel her trembling, he hears Kadowaki's soft gasp, her dismayed sigh. A tear leaks from the corner of of Quistis's eye. She begins to pant.

"Hey," Zell says. "Quisty, look at me."

He sweeps a hand over her forehead, careful not to touch the worst of her injuries. Her eye closes. She breathes out through her mouth, inhales through her nose but her body stiffens and the trembling gets worse.

"Please try to relax, Quistis," Kadowaki says. Zell can hear tears in her voice. "It's only a speculum."

It triggers something. Something forgotten. A memory eaten full of holes by GF's.

_"Try to relax, Zell."_

He blinks it away, but for a second, he is 13, lying face down on an exam table in the infirmary. Xu, barely 18, sits in a chair by the wall and refuses to look at him.

It hurts. _Fuck, it hurts so bad_ , what Kadowaki is doing. It feels like he sat on a pine cone, like she's reaming him with a pipe cleaner.

He hears the click of a camera shutter and looks up, pulled out of that distant memory, but Kadowaki is hidden behind the sheet.

Zell starts to shiver. It's warm in here, but he's chilled by what he doesn't want to remember. He holds tighter to Quistis's hand. The best he can do is distract her, and himself.

"When we get back," he says. "I'm taking you out for sushi and beer. We'll get drunk and watch the sunrise from the point like we used to. Remember that?"

Her grip eases and another tear slips down the side of her face but she's listening. Zell brushes the tears away and keeps talking.

"It's been too long since we did anything fun together," he says. "I miss it, you know? I miss hanging out with you. And Garden function dates don't count. Even though those are a lot more fun when you're my date. 'Casue, you know, no pressure."

He starts to ramble about stuff. Talks about finally sucking it up and going home to Ma's empty house. Fixing it up. Making it his home again. Or selling it. Maybe accepting that instructor job Squall keeps offering him. Maybe retiring and teaching the neighborhood kids instead. How he eventually wants a family of his own. A couple kids, a swing set in the back yard. A barbecue grill and neighborhood block parties.

"Who woulda thought I'd wind up being that guy, huh?" he asks. "Mini van and a dad bod?"

Quistis smiles a little. She squeezes his hand.

"I never pictured you otherwise, Zell," she says. "You were never quite like the rest of us."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's a compliment."

Quistis tenses up and Zell goes back again, only for a second, but it hits him like a grenade.

He's 13, the smallest in his year. Puberty has been kind to his peers, they're all a head taller than he is, hair sprouting all over their bodies. He's seen it in the dorm showers, the way they are all changing and he is getting left behind. He still has the body of a child except for what's between his legs.

There's a patch of dark blond hair sprouting down there and he's only recently discovered masturbation, something the other boys talk and joke about in the locker room and the shower and in the dorms when it's boys only. They have teased him about his short stature, about his childish body, and now he's finally caught up to them, he thinks, in every way but height.

The dorm is no place to experiment. He shares a room with three other boys, bunk beds set on the walls, and there's never any privacy. In a year, he will move into a different dorm, where he will have his own space, but right now, he is almost never alone.

The need for privacy and the constant teasing drives him to shower alone, late at night in the gym instead of the dorm. These showers have doors instead of a big open space with eight shower heads where everyone can see everything. He likes the quiet, the closed door behind him, and here he can jerk off without fear that someone will see him and make fun.

One night, it's late and he's all by himself, his hand wrapped around his dick, less than a minute from coming when the door behind him opens. The boy is probably sixteen or so. His smile is weird. Hungry.

Zell orders him out and covers himself, but the boy, still smiling, comes further in and locks the door behind him. Zell fights, fights with everything he's got, but the boy is twice his size and there's no one around to hear him scream. Hard to hear his shrieks around the washrag stuffed in his mouth anyway.

It hurts. Like shitting out a hot poker. He kicks, struggles, tries to crawl away, clenches down to keep him out but that only makes it worse. Zell has been beaten up, he's broken bones, fractured his skull, and had his appendix explode, and none of those things were as painful or as terrifying as this.

After, a janitor finds him laying on the cold tile floor, the hot water still running, watching a thin thread of blood swirl down the drain. He screams when the janitor touches him. Kicks and fights and blacks out and when he wakes, he's in the infirmary, face down and naked from the waist down on the exam table.

_"Do you remember what happened to you, Zell?"_

He remembers. He remembers the sound of wet skin slapping against wet skin, a shocking amount of pain, fear, violation.

No one can find out about this. Nobody. If they do, he won't just be the puny little shrimp they tease because he's small. He'll be the puny little shrimp who likes gay butt sex in the shower. He's heard them joke about taking it up the ass, and male on male rape and it's always followed by derisive laughter. He's heard them give other boys a hard time, boys they suspect of being queer.

Zell's already got a target on his back. He does not need another.

They won't care that he didn't like it. They won't care that he cried the whole time. They won't care how humiliating it was to have it taken by force. He'll be an even bigger joke than he is now.

" _Don't tell anyone," he begs Kadowaki. "Please. Don't tell."_

Zell doesn't want to remember this. There's a reason he buried it.

He talks to Quistis to keep the memory at bay until Kadowaki finishes her exam. When she lowers Quistis's feet from the stirrups, Kadowaki's expression is grave.

"Did he use protection, Quistis?"

Quistis's throat bobs and her mouth twists around the word _no_.

"Did he ejaculate inside you?" she asks. "Or did he withdraw?"

Quistis begins to hyperventilate. Zell thinks he might be sick. It's too much. Too personal. She doesn't deserve to have to answer questions like these after what she must have suffered.

"Hey Doc? You think you can ask this shit later?" he says. "After she's had some sleep or something?"

"I need to determine the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases," Kadowaki says. "I know these questions are hard, but it's best to get them out of the way now so that we can head off both possibilities before it's too late."

Quistis's eye closes. Fresh tears spill down the side of her face and she gasps for breath. Zell's throat closes up and his chest constricts. He doesn't want to know the answer to this question any more than Quistis wants to answer it. No more than he wants to remember whether or not his attacker came inside him or not.

"Please answer the question, Quistis," Kadowaki says. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

"Inside," Quistis whispers, after an eternity of silence.

"Every time?" Kadowaki asks.

"I wasn't conscious every time," Quistis says. There is no inflection in her voice. "But I assume so, yes."

"During oral and anal penetration as well?"

"Yes."

Her voice is no more than a whisper.

Zell, who has held it together pretty well, all things considered, has to bite back sobs. He can't imagine how Quistis endured it or how difficult it must have been for her to not be able to fight back. He knows that feeling of helplessness, but how much worse must it be for her?

"And how many times?"

"I don't know," Quistis says. "I didn't keep count."

"Can you give me an estimate?"

Inside his head, Zell screams at Kadowaki to leave her alone and stop asking questions. This is hard enough. Quistis doesn't need a thousand questions about it right this very second.

He wishes he could carry her out of here, into one of the bunks aboard the ship so she can get some rest. He'd stand guard at the door and fight anyone who tried to come in and ask more stupid questions. Quistis has suffered enough. She deserves to be left alone.

"It was frequent," Quistis says. Her voice cracks. "Maybe four, five times a day after he stopped drugging me. Before that, I don't know."

"Okay," Kadowaki says. "I'll start you on a round of antivirals and a stronger antibiotic, just in case. Once we return to Garden, I'll prescribe you something to stop fetal development if you are pregnant. I know you're already on the monthly preventative, but it's best to take precautions."

Zell squeezes her hand and brings her knuckles to his lips. He holds them there and closes his eyes. He wishes he could hold her instead, the way his Ma used to hold him when he was hurt or upset. He wishes he could protect her from anymore pain.

"I would like to give you something to help you sleep, Quistis," Kadowaki says. "You need to rest."

"No," Quistis says. "I don't want it."

"Something for the pain, then."

"I don't want it."

"Quisty," Zell says, "please take something. I'll be right here. I won't let anybody touch you, okay?"

"No."

Zell isn't going to push it. She doesn't want it. He might disagree with her choice, but he respects her wishes.

Kadowaki sighs and stands. She moves to the other side of the bed and her hand grazes over Quistis sheared hair.

"I'm sorry this happened to you, Quistis," she says. Quistis closes her eye. "I need to step out for a moment. Are you comfortable being in here alone with Zell?"

Zell scowls. Like he'd ever, ever hurt his best friend. He gets it, though. It isn't a matter of what he would or wouldn't do, it's about Quistis's comfort and sense of security.

"I trust him," Quistis says.

"She's safe with me, Doc."

"I know," Kadowaki says.

Her eyes are red and watery. She's going off somewhere to cry.

Zell wishes he could, too. He wants to cry so bad, it hurts, but he wants her to feel protected and safe more than he wants to cry. He's got to be brave for her.

She relaxes with a soft and shuddering sigh. The worst, he thinks, is finally over. He hopes.

"So, you didn't answer me about he sushi and beer," he says. "Is it a friend date?"

"Zell," she says.

"What?"

"Thank you."

 

 

 

Quistis sleeps and Zell stays by her side. He's exhausted, but he doesn't leave until Kadowaki frog marches him to the door and pushes him out with orders to find a bunk and close his eyes for a while.

He doesn't.

Squall and Seifer have not returned yet. He understands this is because they're going over everything with a fine toothed comb, but he's growing impatient. He wants to take Quistis home where she can rest and heal.

The sun is fully up when his exhaustion and his irritation mingle together, his temper rising, and he leaves the airship. At first he thinks he's just going to walk it off, but then he spies the motel in the distance, it's rusty sign no longer a relic of a bygone era but a signpost for a back entrance to hell.

He crosses the field to the parking lot. The door of the room where Quistis suffered for days is open. The pair of idiot sixes are carting boxes out of the room.

Evidence. Proof of the torture Quistis endured.

Zell wants to set them all on fire. Burn them to ash.

He barges into the room. It's been stripped down to bare bones but it still smells of mildew and sex. There are blood stains on the mattress.

His fists clench at his sides and he stares at those brownish blots and thinks of how he bled too. Something in his mind snaps.

He overturns the dresser and the old tube TV crashes to the floor. The screen explodes with a pop and the odor of cum and rot is overpowered by the scent of ozone and electrical fire. It satisfies his need to destroy something since the thing that needs to be destroyed is out of reach.

Next he hurls a moth eaten arm chair at the window and feels vindicated when the pane cracks and two of the rotten legs break off the bottom.

The sixes stare at him from the doorway, wide eyed and bovine stupid.

He picks up a lamp from the nightstand and bashes it against the wall. The cheap glass fractures and spills across the carpet like a spray of glitter.

He thinks of Selphie and her fucking sunshine and explosions world philosophy, and of how he can't stand the way she pretends her life is so perfect and wonderful when it's all a sham. He thinks of Rinoa and Squall and their sickening obsession with each other. And Irvine, who acts like he's gods gift but the only person who actually wants to fuck him is Selphie, and only when she has some sort of plausible deniability excuse to fall back on.

And he thinks of himself, the guy who can't keep a girl for longer than a few months. He's the guy girls call on when they want to fuck but don't want a relationship. He's the guy they can count on to make sure they cum too, because it's no fun for him if they're not enjoying it as much as he is.

But he never, ever gets too close. It always fizzles out before it gets real. No hard feelings, nothing for keeps.

And Quistis, who had a thousand admirers and not one of them worthy of her. Especially not the sick fuck who took what he wanted anyway.  

He wants to burn this entire fucking place to the ground. Starting with the mattress.

A Fira should do the trick. He makes the shape of the spell in the air in front of him and feels it start to build in his palm. He wants to reduce this place to rubble, wipe it off the map, scrub away any remaining traces of the indignities Quistis faced here.

He is seconds away from releasing an inferno when hands lock around his upper arms and drag him away. He fights, kicks, screams, spits out profanity that would make a sailor blush until he's shoved face first against a cold cinder block wall, an arm pressed into the back of his neck to hold him in place.

This only stokes the fury building up inside him. It only reminds him of that boy, holding him down on the cold tile floor and stealing away something Zell could never quite get back.

"Calm the fuck down," Seifer says in his ear.

Zell starts to cry. He doesn't even care that Seifer will see him do it.

In his mind's eye, all he can see is that thin thread of blood swirling down the drain.


	7. Chapter 7

They form a human shield around her when they disembark beside Garden late that afternoon. Squall and Dr. Kadowaki in the lead, Quistis behind them, too proud to be wheeled in on a gurney. Zell flanks her on the left, Seifer on the right, and the rest follow close behind.

Everything hurts but Quistis is determined to walk through those doors on her own, but not with her head held high. She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the bathroom mirror. She knows what she looks like.

For so many years, she wished she wasn't what other people called beautiful. The attention bothered her. It was a distraction that undermined her authority and intelligence. Her supposed beauty is ruined by burn and blade scars, her lovely hair gone, and she mourns the loss of both.

She's never thought of herself as vain. She's always told herself that she didn't care about her looks, that they're not important, they don't matter.

How wrong she was. No one would ever call her beautiful again. And how very vain she truly is deep down. She's been lying to herself her entire life.

She pulls the hood of Zell's sweatshirt lower over her face when they near the front doors. Squall has assured her that the majority of the student body and faculty will be at assembly, doing the quarterly Garden-wide safety seminar. If even one person sees her return this way, word will be out by supper that Quistis Trepe is ruined.

They'll find out eventually, but she's not ready to face it. Not today. There are more awful, invasive things to come today. Questions she still needs to answer. Statements to give. And she'll spend the night in the infirmary for observation, surrounded by that medicinal, sterile smell. It will only underscore how unclean she feels.

It's an eternity before they reach the Infirmary wing and her legs are shaking. She's hungry and tired. Her insides hurt. Her head, too. When she sways on unsteady feet, both Seifer and Zell catch her.

She's not going to cry. Not here. Not now.

“Want me to carry you the rest of the way?” Zell asks quietly. “I don't mind.”

If she was as smart as she thinks she is, she would say yes, but she shakes her head. She's determined to do this. The sooner she can do for herself, the sooner she can return to her own room, surrounded by familiar things and smells, and sleep in a familiar bed.

Squall and company peel off from the group at the mouth of the long hall that leads to the Infirmary. He doesn't say anything but the look he gives her is one she can't read.

“Zell, you stay with Quistis for now,” Squall says. “Everyone else, with me.”

Seifer touches her shoulder lightly, flashes a sad smile, and turns to join Squall.

She doesn't know why, after all these years, Seifer has decided to return to Garden, but she suspects there's an agreement. Squall occasionally makes off book deals with former SeeDs, things that Garden can't be associated with. Jobs that are too small or too dirty to touch. It has occurred to her more than once that Seifer is the perfect person to make that kind of an arrangement with. It's to Seifer's benefit that he accepts.

Zell escorts her to the Infirmary. Kadowaki follows and instructs Quistis to have a seat in one of the exam rooms.

Quistis is afraid there will be more exams and she shivers inside the warm shell of Zell's sweatshirt. She closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing. The sweatshirt smells like him. It's nice. Comforting. Calming. Two things he has been since the moment the nightmare ended and she inhales the scent, grateful that he's here.

Kadowaki checks the progress of her healing wounds and replaces the bandages. Zell is beside her, holding on to her hand, but his eyes are on the wall above her head. Far away and tired.

He hasn't slept. She can tell. There are cuts on his knuckles. Bruises too. Those weren't there before.

“Zell, you're hurt,” she says. “Your hand.”

He flexes his fingers and looks at the bruises like he didn't know they were there. His eyes slide away from her and he shrugs.

“Zell.”

“It's no big,” he says. “Mighta lost my temper a little is all.”

“With who?”

“Nobody in particular,” he says. “Don't worry about it. It was just me bein' a hothead. You know how I can get.”

Quistis is familiar with Zell's mercurial temper, but it's a temper that has cooled some over the years. It's been some time since he let it get the best of him. It bothers her that it's probably because of her.

“It's all good, Quisty,” he promises. “I didn't punch anybody.”

“What did you punch?”

His mouth twists to the side and he bites his lip.

“Zell?”

“A wall, I think,” he says. He sighs. “It might have been Seifer.”

Quistis sighs. Some things never change. If it was Seifer, he probably provoked it. He never could resist the urge to get Zell worked up.

“Alright, Quistis,” Dr. Kadowaki says. She places a bottle of pills on the side table. “Those are to prevent the possibility of pregnancy. Take one with breakfast and one with dinner for the next five days. You should notice spotting or light bleeding and you may have some cramping on the day of or the day after the last dose. Won't last long, but if you don't start your period around day five or six, I need you to come see me immediately.”

Quistis takes the pills and nods. The last thing she wants is to be knocked up. Especially not by a man like Davos.

“Start them today, and whether you want it or not, it needs to be a full meal,” Kadowaki says. “As far as your facial injuries, they're healing nicely but they're going to leave scars. You may want to consider consulting with an Estharian reconstruction clinic to minimize the appearance of the scarring. I don't know much about it but I've heard it's quite effective.”

She hasn't really considered Esthar to this point. She's aware of their advanced medical technology, but it seems vain of her to undergo a surgery to remove the scars. SeeDs don't do that, no matter how ghastly the injury. Scars are a bragging right. They are badges of honor. A true SeeD wears theirs with pride.

Quistis will never be proud of these scars. Never. If she'd earned them saving a life or fighting a war, perhaps she would feel different about them. These scars shout her shame. They tell a story of humiliation and degradation. Every time she looks in the mirror, she will think of him.

Zell's been pretty quiet since they left Timber. She might blame it on asking him to stay with her during Dr. Kadowaki's exam and the surgery, but he'd been a rock during all of that. He'd talked her through it and held her hand. Now there is a distance in his face and something turbulent brewing beneath the surface. She doesn't know what it is but scares her.

He would never and could never hurt her but he occasionally hurts himself out of anger. Punching walls, jumping off cliffs into the ocean, getting into fights with people in bars over petty things. At least once, he's provoked a fight and got his ass kicked after a bad mission that he believed went bad because of something he did or didn't do.

Quistis touches his hand and he flinches. Looks guilty and wraps his fingers around hers.

Does he think she's ruined now? Something dirty and defiled? Does he not want her to touch him because she's unclean?

A knot tightens in her throat and the first fluttering of panic builds in her belly. Oh, god. She still _smells_ like him. She can smell his sweat and his cum on her and she wants it off. She wants it off right now, oh _god_ -

“Quistis?”

She screams when Kadowaki drops a hand to her shoulder. Pulls away, one foot in the present and the other still in that horrid, moldering room. She flees to the door but the way is blocked. The only refuge is the corner, next to the supply cabinet and she wedges herself into it, her arms thrown over her head for protection.

Her chest is so tight and her heart is beating so fast she's sure she's having a heart attack. She can't breathe, it hurts to breathe and -

“Hey,” Zell says. “You're okay, Quisty. You're okay. You're safe.”

She's not safe. She won't ever be safe again. She won't ever be free of him.

“Quisty, I'm gonna pick you up, okay?” Zell says. “I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just gonna move you over to the bed.”

She's so tired, so exhausted, and it's _Zell_. She doesn't put up a fight. The scent of his cologne calms her.

“Your heart's about to leap out of your chest,” he murmurs. He lifts her and carries her across the room. “Just breathe, okay? In... out...”

She hates herself for not wanting him to let go. She hates herself for being so weak. She can handle this. She just needs to focus, put it behind her, and move on. That's all.

“I wish you'd let me give you something,” Kadowaki says. “Nothing too strong, just enough to help you relax.”

Quistis didn't want to be drugged ever again. She would rather endure excruciating pain than feel that helpless again.

“No.”

Zell's looking at her and for once she can't tell what he's thinking.

“Hey Doc?” he says after a pause. “You think maybe it'd be okay if I took her to her room instead of making her bunk here for the night? She might be more comfortable there.”

Bless him. He knows exactly what she needs. If he wasn't Zell and she wasn't teetering on the edge, she would kiss him.

“I don't know...”

“C'mon,” Zell says. “I'll stay with her. Keep an eye on her, yanno? And anyway, I bet she'd really like a bath. Like, with her own shampoos and stuff.”

“Yes,” Quistis says. “ _Please_.”

Kadowaki sighs and looks from Zell to Quistis and back.

“Fine, but you bring her to me at the first sign of anything wrong,” Kadowaki says. “I mean anything. If she starts running a fever or shows signs of lethargy, slurs her words, complains of a headache, gets the hiccups... you don't hesitate. You bring her to me immediately.”

“Yeah!” Zell says and pumps his fist in the air. This is the first time since her rescue that Zell has actually behaved like himself. “You can count on me, Doc.”

“Can I get the stitches wet?” Quistis asks.

“Don't submerge them, but you may use a washcloth and gently clean the area with warm water,” Kadowaki says. “If there is any inflammation, you need to come see me right away.”

“Of course,” she says. “Thank you.”

“Quistis?” the doctor says, “I won't hesitate to sedate you in the future if I think it's necessary. By force if I have to.”

It takes her breath away, but Quistis nods, determined not to give Kadowaki a reason to do that.

 

  
The student body is still in assembly, which Zell is glad for. It means he can wheel Quistis up to her staff apartment without anyone staring or whispering. The longer they can delay the rumor mill, the better. If they're lucky, once they heal, her scars won't be so bad that she feels like she has to hide.

She's still beautiful to him. Maybe it's because they're besties that Zell still sees her beauty objectively. She's more to him than her face. More than her body. She'll always be more than that to him.

Garden is dead silent and the halls are empty. He could hear a pin drop from the other side of the building.

Zell can't stop thinking about his own scars, now that they've cracked open and started to bleed again. He wants to punch something. Somebody. And then go back to forgetting it ever happened.

His hands tighten around the handles of the wheelchair. He can't remember what happened to the kid who raped him. If they caught him or not. If he's still here.

He does remember that Kadowaki didn't tell Ma the whole truth. _Bullies_ , she said. _Take him home, let him get some rest. A couple days, he'll be back on his feet. He's a tough kid._

Zell changed his specialty after that. Not firearms, like his granddad. Martial arts, hand to hand, turned his whole body into a deadly weapon so that it would never, ever happen again.

He stops and looks at his hands. Curls them into fists and opens them again. His bruised knuckles throb. Might be a broken bone. He's broken so many over the years, broken bones don't really bother him.

“Zell?”

“Hey, you wanna get something to eat before we head up?” he asks. “Might actually get some hot dogs today.”

“...if you're hungry.”

“Not really.”

“Then I'd rather just go to my room,” she says. “I'll eat something later with my pill.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Quistis has one of the best apartments in the building. The more clout and responsibility a person has here, the better the accommodations. Zell can't complain about his own room in the SeeD dorms, but Quistis has actual space to spread out and he's always been a little jealous of her closet space and the queen bed covered in an abundance of soft blankets and pillows.

He could have a room like this if he ever decides to take the instructor position. Maybe it's time to seriously consider it. He's not getting any younger, and the only missions instructors go on these days are field exams. Mostly day shifts, most weekends off. The more he thinks about it, the better it sounds.

Zell leaves Quistis on the sofa and turns on the bath. She's got a dozen or more bubble bath scents to choose from and he sniffs them one by one until he finds something that smells relaxing and fresh instead of flowery. He follows the instructions on the bottle and adds a couple of cap fulls to the water and the room is filled with perfume. Foamy white bubbles froth on top of the water.

Back in the living room, he helps her to her feet, but she can barely stand. Her body trembles with the effort.

“You want to wait on the bath?” he asks. “Get some sleep first?”

“No.”

Zell nods and picks her up and carries her like a bride into the bathroom.

She slumps into him when he sets her on her feet, still shaking. Her teeth are chattering.

He thought maybe he could leave her to it, let her undress herself and let her have a few minutes of privacy but the exhaustion and the trauma have caught up with her. She's fighting just to stay vertical.

“Want me to get Xu? Or Rinoa?” he asks.

A fat tear rolls down her cheek and she shakes her head.

“I'm not ready,” she says. “They'll want me to explain.”

It's not his own discomfort he thinks of. It's Xu, sitting there in the Infirmary, blank faced and unsympathetic. It might be different because it's Quistis and Quistis is Xu's friend, but Zell isn't positive she would be kind.

Rinoa would be kind. She might not even ask questions.

“I'm sorry. I can't ask you to do this,” Quistis says. “You've already done enough.”

“It's cool,” Zell says. He wipes her tears away. “I just, you know, don't want you to be uncomfortable.”

It's a stupid thing to say. She hasn't had a single moment of comfort for the last week.

“You've already seen everything...” she says. “I'm not okay with anyone else seeing it too.”

His throat gets tight. All he can do is nod and focus on being professional. This job is not over yet, but his resolve to stay strong is draining away fast.

It's not her fault. He's tired and he keeps getting flashbacks of his devastated thirteen year old self lying on a tile floor, wanting to die of shame, having to hide the violence from everyone around him.

Quistis is in the same place now as he was then. He can't tell her that he understands what it feels like to want to hold that secret close.

He keeps his eyes on her face while he helps her undress. Her wounds are healing but it still hurts to see how badly Davos treated her, but it is out of respect that he doesn't look elsewhere.

She cries out when he eases her into the bath and Zell worries it's the temperature or that he's hurt her, but it's not. It's relief. She sinks into the water, her body hidden beneath mounds of bubbles and she moans when she relaxes against the back of the tub.

“You got this?” he asks.

Quistis nods. He notices how uneven her hair is. It bothers him.

“Okay,” he says. “I'm gonna step out for a minute, but I'll be back.”

The second he closes the door behind him, Zell breaks down.

He only allows himself a minute this time. He's too tired to let his fury get the best of him. He's too tired to open the floodgates.

When it passes, he gets up and goes to his room. In the bathroom, he digs his electric clippers out of the closet and plugs them in.

He closes his eyes at the buzz against his scalp. The long strands of his bangs float away from his head and into the sink like feathers and he is reminded of Quistis's hair strewn about that filthy hotel room coating everything in gold.

 

 

For the first time in a week, Quistis is truly clean on the outside. The warmth of the bath has eased the tension and the aches in her body, and her skin glows pink from repeated scrubbings.

When Zell returns, he's got a pair of electric clippers and his head is shaved to the scalp. Quistis is so shocked, she can't find anything to say. He does not have to tell her why he did it. His reason is obvious and she loves him for it.

He helps her out of the bath and wraps her up in her favorite bathrobe. It's warm and soft against her skin and she welcomes the comfort of something familiar.

“After you get some sleep, I'll fix your hair for you,” he says and sets the clippers aside. He looks as tired as she feels and with his head shaved, he looks like a hungry baby bird. “After _I_ get some sleep.”

He carries her to the bed and tucks her in. She closes her eyes at the sensation of his lips against his forehead.

“You don't have to stay,” she says. “But I won't mind if you do.”

He groans, kicks off his trainers and stretches out beside her.

“Not goin' anywhere,” he says and yawns, “except maybe the couch. Xu'll find me passed out in the elevator if I try to go back to my room.”

He closes his eyes. Quistis does too.

Neither of them open their eyes again for almost twelve hours.

 

 

It's to a loud and insistent banging on the door that Zell wakes. He sits up, startled and at first he doesn't know where he is. Not until he sees Quistis curled up on her side, drowning in blankets does he remember the last couple of days and how he got here.

He climbs from the bed and dashes across the room as quietly as he can before the noise wakes Quistis and flings the door open. Xu is standing on the other side, hands on her hips and wearing a scowl that could wither a bouquet of flowers in an instant

“What are you doing here, Dincht?”

“Doctor's orders,” he says and blocks the doorway, in case she has any ideas about barging in. “She's asleep.”

“Are you seriously trying to keep me out?” Xu says. “It's your fault she got hurt, you know. If you hadn't taken your sweet time finding her, she wouldn't have needed to be airlifted back to Garden.”

This is a low blow. She's punched him in the throat without actually touching him.

And she's right.

“Let me in.”

“She's _asleep_ ,” Zell says. “Let her rest.”

“It's okay,” Quistis says behind him. Her voice is tired and roughened by sleep. “Let her in, Zell.”

Xu smirks triumphantly and pushes past Zell. She makes her way to the bed and perches herself on the edge next to Quistis. Quistis hides her face as best as she can.

“You're dismissed,” Xu says over her shoulder.

“Xu, that's not necessary,” Quistis says.

Zell checks the time. It's after eight in the morning and he's starving. Quistis must be too. She didn't eat anything at all yesterday. He doesn't know if Davos fed her regularly.

He remembers the pills Kadowaki gave her yesterday. He doesn't recall her taking her first dose.

“How about I go grab us some breakfast?” he asks. “You gotta take your meds anyway and Doc said to eat a full meal, right?”

Quistis sits up, but keeps her face turned toward the floor to hide the scars from Xu. It's a wasted effort. Xu gasps and covers her hand with her mouth.

“Quistis!” she cries. “Your hair! Your _face_!”

Zell notices Quistis's stiff posture and steely expression. He hates Xu so very much in that moment, he wishes he could cave her face in until it's worse than Quistis's.

“What can I get you, Quisty?” he asks. “Pancakes? Maybe an omelet with all the fixings? Cheese and veggies and stuff?”

Quistis nods. “An omelet sounds perfect. I want everything in it. And maybe a side of bacon?”

“You got it,” he says and forces himself to flash his brightest smile. “Be right back.”

Outside her door, in the deserted hallway, Zell has to stop and catch his breath.

 

  
Quistis braces herself for Xu's shock. She submits to the hands that stroke her butchered hair and blocks out the sounds of dismay Xu makes at the sorry state of her face. She has to hold it together. She will not cry in front of Xu.

They are friends, but Xu is not a woman who understands weakness. To her, everything is just an event on a timeline. To her, trauma should be internalized and regarded as a character building exercise. She will not tolerate anything else.

“What did he do to you, Quistis?” she asks. “You look awful.”

Quistis gestures at her face and blocks out the storm of rage inside her.

What did he do? What he did can't be described in a hundred words or less. Xu wants a report, not a list of grievances or feelings on the subject.

“Magic,” she points to the burn scars, then to her missing eye, “Scissors.”

Xu touches Quistis's cheek and Quistis pulls away.

“Don't.”

“Goddamn Dincht,” Xu says and shoots a glare at the door over her shoulder. “If I'd had anybody else to send, it wouldn't have been him.”

“Lay off him, alright?” Quistis says. “Davos was careful.”

“The way I hear it, Almasy's the one who recognized him on the train.”

“And?” Quistis asks. “Zell got there before he killed me, which he would have done sooner or later, whether he meant to or not.”

“Yeah, but still,” Xu says. “Maybe if he'd gotten his shit together sooner, he would have found you before the monster wrecked your face.”

_Wrecked your face._

That's what people are going to think from now on. Not that Quistis Trepe survived an entire week of abuse, but that she'd come back looking like a mad scientist's failed experiment.

Xu reaches across her and picks up the bottle of pills from the nightstand. She reads the label and her mouth opens, closes, and she turns to stare at Quistis. Quistis snatches the bottle from her hand and sets it back down.

“I didn't realize it was like that,” Xu says.

“He had me tied to a bed in an abandoned motel for a week,” Quistis says bitterly. “What do you think we did all that time? Play board games and talk about politics?”

“No, but I figured it was some sort of ransom situation,” Xu says. “Or that you were already dead.”

Quistis finds this upsetting but she doesn't show it. She was presumed dead from the start. They'd feared the worst because the Quistis they knew would have to be dead if she didn't report for a mission.

“And anyway, I'm surprised Kadowaki assigned Dincht to look after you now that you're back,” Xu says. “Considering what happened to him back in the day.”

Quistis isn't sure what that means. Zell has never once let on anything besides bullying happened to him when he was a cadet. Quistis is suddenly afraid there's more to it than getting picked on for being short.

“What are you talking about, Xu?”

“You don't remember?” Xu says. “It was a huge thing back then.”

Quistis shakes her head. She doesn't recall many scandals from her junior cadet years, and none of them involve Zell, unless she counts the occasional sleepwalking incidents when he was fifteen, a weird side effect of some kind of drug prescribed to curb his hyperactivity.

“You don't remember Thom Dill?” Xu asks. “The guy who had a thing for little boys? He raped like, sixteen cadets, all of them under the age of fourteen, and none of them ever said anything until Dincht caught him in a bathroom stall messing with another kid. Dincht was one of his victims."

“ _What_?” Quistis asks. “I have no memory of this. At all.”

Quistis struggled to process this. Xu is saying that Zell was a victim, too, but he's never mentioned it or even referenced this that she can recall. She doesn't know what to do with this information either. If it's supposed to make her feel better, it doesn't.

“It happened,” Xu says. “I'm just surprised I guess. Dincht didn't handle it well.”

“How old was he?” Quistis hears herself asking. “When he was attacked?”

“Twelve. Maybe thirteen,” Xu says. “Dill was almost seventeen at the time, over six foot and weighed about 220. None of those kids stood a chance.”

Her heart cracks in two. Poor Zell. He'd been so small at twelve, almost comically so. He wouldn't have been able to fight off someone more than a foot taller and more than 100 pounds heavier than he was, no matter how hard he fought. She also knew how painful forced anal penetration was for her as a grown woman, and couldn't imagine how humiliating and painful it must have been for a boy of twelve or thirteen.

She doesn't know how he's hung in for the last 24 hours without freaking out. Surely, it must bring up painful memories, and she's not even sure how he can look at her and not feel sick to his stomach. If she were in his shoes, she wasn't so sure she could handle it.

“Maybe he doesn't remember any of it either,” Xu says. “Probably for the best if he doesn't.”

And maybe he does. Maybe that's why he's been so caring and sweet.

“For what it's worth, I'm sorry,” Xu says. “I should have sent a couple newbies with you, but I didn't think there would be some crazy stalker following you either.”

Quistis sighs. She's tired of thinking about this. Tired of talking about it. 

“So what happens now?” she asks. “Will I be able to go back into the field?”

“Do you want to?” Xu asks. She sounds surprised. “I mean, I get it, but with your vision compromised... I don't know that combat will be an option.”

Quistis tenses. “Others have succeeded with impairments.”

“True,” Xu says, “but for now, you need to heal. We'll see where we're at in a couple of weeks.”

This is acceptable. She's not being put out to pasture just yet, and that's something. She's not sure if she'll be capable of returning to full duty, but at least the option isn't dead.

 

 

  
Zell is waiting for his order in the cafeteria when Leayna, the cute red-headed SeeD from the medic squad, slides up next to him with a smile. He smiles back. She's cute and fun, in and out of bed, and there's absolutely no drama around her, which he likes.

“S'up?” he greets. “Haven't seen you around in a while.”

“Yeah, I was dating that guy from intel,” she says. “You know, the one I took to the winter formal? Turns out he's a creep so I dumped him.”

“Good for you,” he says. “Hope you punched him in the snout for bein' a creep.”

“The balls, actually,” she says. “So, what's up with the hair?”

Zell runs a hand over quarter inch of stubble on his head and shrugs.

“Showing some support for a friend,” he says. “Solidarity, you know?”

“Your friend got cancer or something?”

“Naw, nothing like that,” he says. “Just having a rough time.”

“It's different,” she says and touches the side of his head. “Soft. So, what are you up to? Seeing anybody?”

“Nah, just got back from Timber,” he says. “Been too busy.”

“Cool,” she says. “Well, if you're not too busy later, maybe you wanna swing by my room? Hang out for a while?”

The prospect of no strings attached sex is tempting. This whole thing with Timber and Quistis has him stressed out and upset and he could really use some time to unwind.

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “What time will you be around?”

“Seven-ish?” she says. “Maybe a little after? I've got a suture re-certification class until 6:30.”

“Sounds good,” Zell says. “See ya then.”

He watches her leave and then notices Irvine just a few feet away, smirking. Zell would rather not talk to him right now, but it's too late to run away, and he's still waiting for his order.

“How do you do it, man?” Irvine asks. He elbows Zell in the ribs.

“Do what?”

“Don't play dumb,” Irvine says. “You got, like, some secret love potion or pheromone I don't know about?”

“Yeah, it's called respect, dumbass,” Zell says. “I've told you a million times.”

“I respect the ladies,” Irvine says. “But I don't have 'em lined up around the block like you do, loverboy. And I've seen your dick and it ain't all that, so what's the deal?”

Zell sighs. He's too tired to play this stupid game. Irvine doesn't get that he comes on way too strong, and he's never going to get it.

“I've had a really rough week, man,” Zell says, “so can you just, like, fuck all the way off right now? Before I punch you in the nuts?”

Irvine raises his hands and takes a step back as though Zell has threatened to fight him.

“Relax,” Irvine says. “It's just Selphie's pissed at me again and I haven't gotten laid in a month.”

Zell rolls his eyes. Selphie's pissed at him because he stares at other girls when he's with her. Not just looking, but hungering.

“Fine, you want some advice?” Zell says, “try having a conversation with her without staring at some other girl's tits while she's talking.”

His order is ready and he grabs both containers off the counter, along with a pair of coffees and an orange juice in a drink tray.

“You feeding an army of girls in your room or something?” Irvine asks. “God, what I wouldn't give to have a threesome, just once, you lucky bastard.”

Zell's had enough. It's always sex talk with Irvine. Always tits and legs and short skirts and porn and threesomes, and Zell is sick of it. The guy can't have a conversation without mentioning it.

“Can't you take a fucking hint?!” Zell shouts. “I'm not in the mood for your bullshit today, alright?”

Irvine is stunned. Zell is pissed and annoyed, but he doesn't miss the hurt look on Irvine's face. He sighs, takes a deep breath and lets the anger go.

“I told you, it's been a shitty week,” Zell says. “Sorry.”

“No harm, no foul,” Irvine says. “See you 'round.”

Zell notices Irvine hasn't asked about Quistis, which means he doesn't know. That's a good indication that the rumor mill hasn't yet started spinning tales. Too bad Zell won't be able to keep it that way.

Xu is still there when Zell returns to Quistis's room. She's already taken care of the uneven haircut and is sweeping the remains off the floor while Quistis sits on the bed and runs her hand over and over the short stubble on her head.

“I get all my wigs from this shop in Dollet,” Xu is saying. “It's quality stuff, can't even tell they're wigs. I'll give her a call and see if she can't come out with some stuff for you to try.”

“Do I want to know why you have wigs or why the shopkeeper would come all the way out here just because you asked?” Quistis wonders.

“A lot of my missions are undercover,” Xu says, “not that you're supposed to know that, and she also owes me a favor for dealing with an abusive ex-husband for her.”

“Off book, I assume?”

“Out of the goodness of my heart,” Xu says. Zell snorts back a laugh and she sends daggers at him with her eyes. “He won't be bothering her again.”

Zell sets the containers and the drink tray on the counter in the small kitchen. Quistis's smile is tired but welcoming.

“Is that coffee?” she asks.

“Yup,” he says. “Wasn't sure what you wanted but I got orange juice too.”

She gets out of bed slowly and shuffles over, grimacing, to the counter, lured by the scent of bacon.

“God, that smells good,” she murmurs. Zell pops the container open and pushes a fork at her. “You are an angel, Zell.”

“Naw,” he says. “Just a good friend is all.”

She takes a bite of omelet and groans.

“I never thought I'd be so excited over cafeteria food,” she says and takes another bite. “Either the ladies have stepped up their game or the food is better than I remember.”

Xu places the bottle of pills beside Quistis's meal.

“When was the last time you ate?” Xu asks.

“Crackers on the way home,” Quistis says. She sips the coffee and closes her undamaged eye and sighs dramatically. “Before that... two bites of cold pizza, I think. Maybe two days ago? Not sure.”

She crams a strip of bacon in her mouth and it crunches. Zell is sort of pleased by her reaction to his offering, as long as he doesn't think about that pizza two days ago.

Zell eats his own breakfast, an egg white on a Trabian muffin with spinach, sun dried tomatoes and white cheddar, and tunes out Xu's talk about how much a recent mission to a Centra excavation site cost them.

“Hey, Xu,” he interrupts and she turns cold, cat eyes on him. “That instructor position still open?”

“I have a few external candidates to look at,” she says. “Why?”

“I dunno, I was thinking maybe I'd like to give it a shot.”

“Instructorship isn't something you just try on for a semester to see if you like it or not,” Xu says. “There's more to it than sitting in a classroom.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Zell says and cracks his knuckles. “And besides, I wouldn't be in a classroom most of the time, would I?”

Xu huffs and picks up the orange juice that no one is drinking and helps herself.

“Fine,” she says. “Swing by my office later and pick up the application and the testing materials for the certification. And don't think for one second that just because you're friends with the boss that it's a sure thing. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Zell says. “Thanks.”

“Hmm.”

He doesn't know why Xu has never liked him. Besides the reasons she gave him on the phone last week. He's got a good record of mission successes, and the failed ones were never determined to be his fault. Sure, he's kind of a hot head but he's done a pretty good job of keeping his temper in check until recently.

Whatever. He can't make her like him. It's not like he wants to hang out, but it would be nice if she had a little more faith in him. A bit of respect would be nice too.

Quistis finishes her meal and Zell notices she hasn't taken her pill. He pushes the bottle at her and she sighs.

“Bottoms up,” he says. “Before you forget again.”

He cringes at the look on her face and fills a glass of water for her to take the pill with. If he was in her position, he would be eager to gobble down that pill. He would set a timer to make sure he took the next one. But he's not in her position and he never will be, and he can't imagine having that worry and the reminder on top of everything else.

She opens the bottle, pops a pill into her mouth and chugs the water.

“Happy?” she asks.

“Better safe than sorry, Quisty,” he says.

Zell cleans up the empty breakfast containers. For a second he closes his eyes to steady himself and feels his fist connect with a face. Feels his foot connect with the softness of a gut. Hears the pop of gunfire.

He shakes it off and turns back to the two women, one of whom looks as though she's going to slip to the floor at any second. Quistis has gone pale and he's at her side in a second, steadying her before she can fall out on him.

“You should get some rest,” he says.

“I just slept for twelve hours.” She leans into him. “I should report in with Squall.”

“I doubt he's expecting you to give your report for at least a couple days,” Zell says. “Nobody's gonna be mad if you don't snap back to it right away, so take a nap, recharge your batteries, let Rin paint your toenails or whatever. Just take some time for yourself, okay?”

Xu's lips are set in a thin line. She watches Zell guide Quistis back to the bed where he helps her into it and covers her with a soft, velvety feeling blanket. He lays a hand to her forehead, checking for fever just in case, and tucks her in. Xu huffs when he leaves her with a kiss on the forehead and angles his head at the door.

“We're gonna take off, Quisty,” he says. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

Zell wants to stay, but he needs to get out of here for a bit. There's something nasty building up inside him, an ugliness that is probably best dealt with in the Training Center. He needs Xu out of this room and away from Quistis, too. She's too harsh and unsympathetic and Quistis is still too raw.

In the hall, Xu turns on him.

“What do you think you're doing, Dincht?”

“Taking care of a friend,” he snaps.

“Right.”

Zell is mad now. She could kill him with her bare hands and he doesn't care. He steps into her personal space and glares down at her.

“How about a little empathy, huh?” he says. “Or is that outside your wheelhouse? She's supposed to be your friend, too. Fucking _act_ like it.”

“There's no sense in coddling her, Dincht. It won't do her any good.”

“Not everything is the job, Xu,” he says. “It's not easy to bounce back from something like that! And you don't even know how bad it was, do you? It was fucking bad okay? Really fucking bad! Worse than even you can imagine, so fuck you and your _no sense in coddling her_ bullshit!”

Xu shoves him. He stumbles back, ready to fight. She's a SeeD, not a woman. Every SeeD knows, male, female or other, they better be prepared to finish what they start or suffer the consequences.

“I know you think you're helping, but you're not,” Xu says. “Quistis is a SeeD. She doesn't need your pity or your empathy. She needs to be junctioned as soon as possible so she can forget all this and move on.”

“That what you did to me?”

“Seems like it worked,” Xu says.

“Yeah, until it didn't.”

“You needed it,” she says. “You were a disaster, Dincht. You almost got yourself dropped from the program.  You were borderline suicidal, and look at you now. War hero, Rank A, seventy one successful missions, half our female SeeDs believe you've got some kind of magic tongue or dick or something, so I'd say it worked like a fucking charm.”

“Yeah, well now I'm remembering shit,” Zell says. "So it didn't fucking work."

It's coming back to him.  In pieces, but he remembers things. Like beating Thom Dill's face to a bloody pulp after he walked in on him about to repeat offend in the dorm showers with a kid who looked like he was about eight.

“Did I kill him?” he asks.

“Firing squad,” Xu says. “You were there.”

He does remember that. Now that she's brought it up. Standing outside in the rain beside several other boys, Cid, Xu, SeeDs with somber faces. He can clearly recall the crack of gunfire and the bright bursts of blood blooming on his attacker's chest as bullet after bullet tore into him, shaking his body like a rag doll.

The muscles in Zell's cheek start to twitch. His eye, too.

Was that how Garden got justice for the victims? To make them watch the man that soiled them die? Was it enough?

“Junctioning me didn't help,” Zell says. “All it did was delay it.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo.”

Zell's hand crashes into the wall beside Xu's head before he even registers what he's doing. His fist leaves a dent in the drywall, but Xu barely flinches. Her eyes are flinty and cold and he hates her goddamned guts so much, it takes every ounce of restraint he has to keep from wrapping his hands around her neck and snapping it like a twig.

“Cry me a river, Dincht,” Xu says. “You took it up the ass _one_ time. You know how many times I've had to bend over and take it over the years? I've lost count, but it's part of the job and I've learned to not take it so personally that it destroys me. You let her wallow and it'll destroy her, too. You go down that path yourself, and you're gonna be that scrawny, scared kid who begged us not to tell your Ma all over again. You really wanna go down that road?  Fine, but don't drag her down with you."

“ _Fuck_ you. You don't deserve to be her friend.”

He expects a nasty retort, but all the fight goes out of her and she leans back against the wall and crosses her arms over her chest.

“I know you think I'm being cold,” she says, “but I love Quistis like my own flesh and blood and I'll do what I need to do to protect her. If that means erasing that memory, so be it. And I know you think you're helping by playing the supportive friend, but you're doing it for selfish reasons.”

“Fuck you,” he repeats. “She's my family.”

“Deep down, you think that being there to help her through this will somehow erase your own trauma,” she says. “Make it easier for you to stomach the fact that it took you five days to track her down when it should have been obvious from the start.”

Zell's nostrils flare and he holds his balled up fists against his side to keep from taking a swing.

“She suffered for five days longer than she should have because of _you_.”

He lunges at her, screaming, but big hands drag him back. Seifer. _Again_. Zell fights him but Seifer's got a good hold on him.

“Shouldn't you be off sacrificing small animals or summoning demons or something?” Seifer asks her.

“You're not allowed up here, Almasy.”

“Came to check on Trepe,” he says.

“Like you give a shit.”

“That hurts my feelings.”

“That's hilarious,” Xu says. “Whatever. I have work to do.”

“Then run along,” Seifer says. “Say hi to Satan for me.”

Xu lifts her middle finger and walks away without another word. Seifer laughs and lets Zell go.

“Must really burn her ass to have to work for Leonhart,” he says. “You know she's always thought she would run the place some day. Bet it's eating her alive that Leonhart got the job instead.”

Zell growls under his breath and counts backward from ten.

“You good?”

“I wanna punch her fuckin' face in.”

“Makes two of us, Dincht,” Seifer says. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Trepe okay?”

Zell shrugs. “Taking a nap."

“What are you doing right now?”

“Headed to the training center,” Zell says. “Gonna go kill some stuff.”

“I got a better idea.”

Zell looks at him. He looks pretty serious. Not a trace of his smart ass smirk.

“Yeah? What's that?”

“Swiped a bottle of Sylkis from the ballroom," Seifer says. "Wanna get wasted?”

Zell only takes a half a second to think about it.

“Yeah. Let's go.”

 

 


End file.
